ourspace | II. APPLICATIONS, ACTIVITY REQUIREMENTS, RESERVATIONS, & RESERVES

Routes
There are four ways(/routes/faction) to app into the game:

Canon characters may arrive in the present day, in the Clamshell aboard the Earth forces vessel Morning Star, as an “Earth-PC.” Earth-PCs and Colonial-PCs are the “protagonists” of the game.
Canon characters may arrive in the present day, in the Clamshell aboard the Colonial forces vessel Pericles, as a “Colonial-PC.” Colonial-PCs and Earth-PCs are the “protagonists” of the game.
Canon characters may arrive up to five years in the past, dropped anywhere in this world, as a “Plot-PC.” Plot-PCs are the allies and antagonists of the game, and fulfill a role somewhat like that of NPCs in other DW games and video games.
Original characters native to this universe who have lived in this world their whole lives may be apped as having been born and raised in this universe, as “Home-PCs.”

… but more on that in a moment. First, let’s get to some mechanics.

Per-Player Cap
There is currently a per-player cap of one Earth-PC and one Colony-PC per player. In the first round, you may app two Plot-PCs and two Home-PCs. Please do not app two characters who have significant interactions in their own canon.

Overall Character Cap
Tentatively, there will be a cap of 25 Earth-PCs and 25 Colony-PCs. There will be no character cap for Plot-PCs or Home-PCs. This is a character cap, not an app cap -- apps will be processed until 25 slots per ship are filled.

(Edited 11/21) Per Canon Cap
For the first round, there will be a limit of 5 characters per canon among the Earth/Colony factions. The canon limit will rise when the overall character cap rises. The canon limit does not apply to Plot-PCs (with the caveat that if a canon is popular enough to get 5 characters in the first round, those Plot-PCs should be pretty minor characters).

Reserves and Challenges
For the December round, reserving will essentially give players a 24 hour head-start on applying.

If you wish to challenge a reserved character, you must submit your own reserve during the app window. If you wish to challenge an unreserved character, you may submit at any time during the app window.

Application Schedule
Applications will open for the first time in late December. After that, applications for all four application types will be closed until the end of the fifth-week breather. During the first month, we will ask the community whether it would prefer (1) periodic application rounds or (2) a queue-based system for Earth- and Colony-PCs. Player input will influence the final system.

Power Nerfing… and Regaining! And Just Gaining!
Earth-PC and Colony-PC characters will arrive with non-physical powers completely nuked. Please see Powers: Regains and Sick Gains. Plot-PC characters are subject to special rules, which are detailed on the Plot-PC page.

Who is Appable?
For Earth-PCs, Colony-PCs, and Plot-PCs, there are two main requirements. (1) Your character must come from a published canon, with the exception of “Home-PC” characters, and (2) your character must have reasonably substantial characterization and on-screen interaction with other characters – this is a rule of reason and in an 18+ game shouldn’t require any more elaboration.

Multiple versions of a character are permissible at the same time if three conditions are met: (1) the characters must be reasonably distinct (no book!Katniss and also movie!Katniss); (2) both characters have such reasonably substantial characterization that they would be otherwise appable without reference to the other character’s source canon (e.g., 616 Thor and MCU Thor are okay, Disney Luke Skywalker and Legends Luke Skywalker are okay), and (3) if the multiples do not app during the same round, then the duplicate who apps in the later round must have the permission of the person who apped the first versoin. In other words: the one who was here first gets to nix a double. Anyone caught giving a player grief about nixing a double will face disciplinary action. If this ends up causing more drama then it’s worth, then multiples will be banned going forward.

Because the character must have substantial characterization, published/canon AUs are only permissible if the character has substantial characterization in the alternate version. Choosing one route of several for a video game character is fine; playing Illyasviel from the magical girl AU rather than a traditional Fate/version is fine. Playing Infinities Vader when he has one issue of characterization is not fine.

Because only published characters are permissible, fan-created AUs (vampire!Harry Potter, female!Gaston) are not permissible. For the same reason, previous game AUs are not permissible.

Characters must be appropriate for a space opera game with a war backdrop, but there is no hard age cutoff.

(Home-PCs, as OCs, are subject to none of the things mentioned above.)

One-week app rule and three-month spoiler rule
You may not app (or play on the TDM) characters from canons that have been out for less than one week. If a canon (or a piece of canon) has been out for between one week and three months, you must mark spoilers.

Activity check
Earth-PCs and Colony-PCs are tentatively required to submit three five-comment threads per month.

Plot-PCs are required to submit three five-comment threads every six months. Home-PCs have no activity check, thought we request that they check in during activity checks just to keep the active lists up-to-date.

Let's go back to that routes thing
Each route will have different goals, so please hit up the route specific sub-pages for more information:

Submitting
Once you're done with the route page of your choice, come back to read (and possibly submit to!):