NovMo '24: The Curse of Qualia

◈ The Premise
◈ The Characters
◈ The World
◈ The Story
◈ The Progress

A disgruntled interstellar trucker flees from his past by delivering goods and materials throughout the stars. Jyden Marada has made a decent enough life through this job. Preferring not to settle anywhere, he instead spends his nights burning through unwanted memories with drugs, booze, and the company of strangers. But, when one delivery, marked high priority, fragile, and dangerous, catches Jyden's attention, he is forced to choose between a life that he's used to and a life worth living. Because, in that precious cargo is a man, bound and with no memory of his own. Jyden's decision to protect and shelter this man instead of delivering him to his destination throws the newly formed duo into a wild ride as they find themselves running from the government and more secrets than either of them signed on for. This story takes the two of them across a galaxy of adventure and danger as they both are forced to learn what it takes to be human and what it takes to experience, to live and, maybe, to love.

The Curse of Qualia is being written as an emotional adventure between two men: one who has forced himself to forget how to feel, and one who has never had any experiences worth feeling. Together, the two will find themselves in a thrilling adventure that tests the very essence of themselves, and they must both learn and teach each other what Qualia is once more. This thrilling space adventure is written by Omni under the pen name C.K. Whittaker.

A disgruntled interstellar trucker who took this job to leave his haunted past behind and divulge in a life where he needs no connections and has nothing weighing him down. During his shifts, he lugs around whatever jobs and orders he can get his hands on and drowns his thoughts in the mundane. After his shifts, he'll find the closest illegal shithole and drown his sorrows away in drugs, booze, and sex. After passing out in these places, he either wakes up or gets thrown out, ready to start another shift.

Jyden works at Venture Freights, a smaller trucking company based out of Earth. While it's not the most reputable trucking company, it makes up for that by having deep connections with the Void Market, a less-than-legal interconnected crime network throughout the system. He's been working at Venture Freights for almost a decade now, after his ex Leigh recommended the job to him. While it's not at all what he's trained in or was looking forward to when he was younger, it's something that he can do to keep a figurative roof over his head and do what he wants. And what he wants is to run away from the problems of his past. He doesn't really have friends. No, no, the closest thing to any relationship now are his co-workers that he sees on the very rare occasion their trucks find each other in radio distance and maybe the repeat pleasure workers he sees on round trips. But, he's kept it that way for a reason.

Jyden is in his thirties and he's not exactly the most fit. After all, much of his day is spent sitting in the cabin of his truck. He does have a treadmill built into his cabin, which he uses when he's feeling particularly disgusted with himself, but it's not exactly like he's ripped. For the past few years, he's ravaged his body with drugs and when he's not dousing himself in drugs, he's not exactly healthy with the other stuff he puts himself through. He's had to spend several cycles in emergency recovery centers after binging too much. Thankfully, he makes enough money through trucking to make sure the telltale signs of drug abuse don't show on his skin. The several operations he's been through in his thirties has made it so he's naturally mostly in shape.

Jyden doesn't talk about his past with anyone, and the few who know him well enough to have either been there or know about it don't ask. He didn't really have a past that was extremely traumatic or horrible or anything extreme. He's seen so many horror stories of people going through way worse. But, every time he thinks about it, his heart races and the darkness closes in on him. So, he has learned only to avoid it, and he's fine with it.

As far as looks go... well, he doesn't particularly care about his figure or his looks. He pays enough to make himself not look horribly disfigured by his self-abuse and then continues to do it. But, he's been told he's not bad too look at since he was young. At first, it used to give him an inflated sense of ego that he carried around with him with an undeserved swagger. Then it gave him so many image issues that he stopped looking in the mirror for a good couple of years, and intentionally stopped showering or taking care of himself. Still, he got the compliments, and sometimes he felt like people were intimidated b his looks and didn't want him to ruin their own reputation if they said anything about the smell. Then he left his old life behind and well, now he still doesn't really care about his image, especially now that it reminds him of his old life. But the pleasure workers like to tell him he's by far not their worst customer, and he indulges them and their rants about the particularly nasty people. He knows they need an outlet, and it doesn't really hurt him anymore (nothing really hurts him anymore).

When he was in school, he learned about his past and his parents informed him of his ancestry. It was so surreal to realize that people who looked like him used to be so oppressed and worse than oppressed, when he was basically idolized growing up to the point where he had to turn down being a model. How odd it felt to read about atrocities that he was supposed to feel empathy for when his everyday life shoved in his face the aspect of beauty and perfection, and how he personified these ideals apparently.

The Experiment is a man who has been kept in captivity by the USTF, the United Stellar Task Force. Originally born in Cuosto, a fringe colony, The Experiment was taken as a child when the USTF seized control of Cuosto. The government had deemed there was something interesting and unique to the people naturally born on that colony, with The Experiment being one of them. As soon as he was born, he was shipped to a holding facility in orbit of Cuosto. At first, his life was fairly normal and even someone enjoyable, from what he could remember. At least, it felt normal to him. He was never given a name and never really was able to hang out with people his peers, but he was allowed to do mostly what he wanted... until he disobeyed.

At first, it was metaphorical slaps on the wrist for The Experiment. His overseers would offer gentle course correction. But, as he got older and into his teenage years, the guidance became punishment and the enjoyment lessened. By the time The Experiment turned 20, naive actions resulted in dire consequences, and he found himself locked up in solitary for much of his time.

In his mid-20s, The Experiment was due to be transferred to a facility closer to Earth because the installation in orbit around Cuosto was due to be decommissioned. The contractor for the station had been bought out, and they had subcontracted out to a certain freight company to transport the resources to Nakune Station, orbited around Titan in the Sol System. And the rest, well, that's a tale for another time...

The Experiment, or London as he will be called, is a man who must learn and re-learn much about himself and the world around him. He is in essence at the very beginning of his journey. He has been harmed so much from the world around him by simply existing. He is a battered kind soul who remembers little of his time in imprisonment. He is very much a person who believes that things are inherently good, even with so much that has happened to him simply because of who he is. Unfortunately, he doesn't really know who he is, and thus h doesn't really know what he wants, or what he desires, or what he even likes or dislikes. He must learn who he is and what he wants, and that may not be the easiest task.

For the past hundred years, humanity has had access to Faster than Light Travel through the loophole of manipulating wormholes to distort spacetime. Only a year after this technology was discovered, the USTF was formed. The USTF, or United Space Task Force, was a conglomerate of both private companies and government agencies that formed a unique taskforce designed to pool resources and focus on a single objective: exploring and colonizing space.

At first the USTF had to deal with existing governmental policies and laws as space was not a new territory for many nations around the world. With any new territory to explore, colonize, or conquer, there would always be disagreements over things like who controls what, what limits or restrictions or guidelines there may be for new things, and of course what corners to cut. So, in the beginning the USTF struggled to garner much legitimacy as a business model. It wasn't until several major organizations dissolved into the USTF in conjunction with a new charter with several countries that the organization obtained some semblance of legitimacy. The USTF was the first company to truly go all in on wormhole technology, as it was still very much in its infancy. Additionally, while it was theoretically possible and early studies did prove promising results, the technology required was not only dangerous but obscenely expensive.

Earth, at this point, was a dying world, too ravaged by climate destruction to meaningfully salvage, and within the first five years of the USTF lifespan, the company rallied behind a dual desperation to salvage investments that were running out and a rallying of hope for those devastated by a world ruined by the wealthy elites of the past. By year five of the task force's existence, it pushed through a breakthrough international charter to both commodify stellar efforts and subsidize colonization efforts. The goal of USTF was two-sided: use existing infrastructure on resources no longer fruitful on Earth to instead focus efforts on stellar mining and use a raffle based system to allow those most affected by climate change to reserve the earliest spots for colonization efforts. The USTF based their charter around an equity based system that gave people what they needed to push the limits on research and innovation.

The USTF's early history was incredibly political and divisive in certain parts of the world, where things were resource rich but extremely territorial. With the might of several nations behind it, the USTF invaded unstable regions ad scoured their still untapped resources, and many said the path forward, the path into the stars was only to be paved with blood. It was a grim time for the world with such political and ecological instability, and trust within the USTF had started to falter, with the first nation backing out of the charter with increased nervousness by the eighth year since USTF formed.

It was by the tenth year of USTF's formation that the wormhole technology had proven to be commercially viable and the first tests to the nearest star system began. Once proven successful enough to provide a near future focus, the USTF quickly rose in power and became a quasi-governmental force at this point. While several nations preferred to establish their own national agencies in space, only the USTF garnered enough international support to effectively squash any other attempt.

As colonies sprouted up beyond Earth and into other systems, the USTF helped form official procedures for them to receive support from Earth and establish forms of leadership, control, and infrastructure. In the beginning, the USTF did this behind the scenes and let world and international organizations take the recognition for it. But, by doing this, the USTF established itself as a vital middleman in the colonization process and garnered even more support and power.

It wasn't until Cuosto was established as an official USTF colony in the Centauri System that the USTF morphed into an interstellar superpower. As country governments began to lose control and reputation due to rapidly expanding colonization and broadening representation in the political scene, space military efforts dissolved or merged with USTF. By the present day, USTF is the de facto government in space, in most way. It deals with colonization efforts, handling international and interstellar affairs, trade routes, supply chains, embargoes, and has a military presence due to rebelling outer colonies. In addition to this, the USTF has invested heavily in a less-than-legal scientific and technology branch that pushes the limits of what humanity can achieve.

A disgruntled interstellar trucker flees from his past by delivering goods and materials throughout the stars.