You may be wondering just what the smeg is going on here.
If you've never seen Red Dwarf, we suggest you search it out and give it a watch.
However, you're welcome to follow along anyway as it's not entirely critical to this particular story.
Our purpose is to be a friendly and inviting community in the form of a roleplaying chat.
Original characters as well as pre-existing characters from any sort of media are equally welcome, so long as no one is already playing them.
Everyone is welcome to establish casual storylines and character quirks as well as more serious story arcs as they see fit
(within the guidelines established by the rules).
Our setting is the mining ship Red Dwarf, of its namesake television series.
Currently in lunar orbit in the present day of the real world.
The Universe in our setting is not the Universe of the Red Dwarf television series, but rather a parallel Universe where many continuities collide.
Particularly heavily represented are elements from Star Trek and the various incarnations of Sailor Moon as well as minor elements from other sources.
The crew of Red Dwarf are not native to this gestalt Universe, but stumbled into it sometime after the events at the end of the television series.
The ship is native, however, and thus shares some technology with that of Star Trek.
It should be noted though, that being built by the lowest bidder, and due to the cutbacks by the JMC, it is every bit as shabby as the one depicted in the television series.
The events that led the crew to this Universe and this time frame have been recounted at various times elsewhere and would take too long to go into here.
Wonderfully confusing enlightening as this has undoubtably been, various questions may still arise, to which we shall provide answers.
Q: I notice that almost all of the chracters here are based on Sailor Moon, why not use that as a setting?
A: Many of our users came from another, similar site where the main focus was Sailor Moon.
We decided to migrate our established continuity here when we left.
Since I am the webmaster here and I played the characters from Red Dwarf, it seemed like the logical choice in order to set ourselves apart.
Q: Why would you leave if you're just going to be doing the same thing?
A: Our estrangement was not entirely by choice.
The webmaster there had decided he didn't like some of our present members on a rather personal level, and stooped to devious tactics to drive us away.
Some of us attempted to remain in contact with their other community members, as they were not at fault in any way, but that was unfortunately brought to an end.
When he learned that we had established a competing service, our remaining ties were broken for us, much to our chagrin.
Q: I've seen this other site, why does yours look so similar?
A: Quite a long story that few have been willing to hear out.
The project this site is based on was originally to be an upgrade for that site's system.
It is now only a fleeting memory as very little, if any at all, of the original code remains.
Their code was not extensible and was cracking under the pressure of so many users.
The front-end of this project was merely a skeleton wearing the skin of their interface, while the back-end was entirely of my own devising.
The core idea for the back-end was public knowledge and was used, to our regret, by them to upgrade their system on their own.
When it became necessary for us to establish operation here, it was agreed that the IRC interface was familiar to us and that it would be a fair trade to retain it.
Certain people have taken this as a personal insult, which we find amusing under the circumstances.
Since then, we have strived to make our own way, as free as possible from the influence of our past.
Of course, one can only reinvent a format so much, and our work has focused on the more critical functionality, rather than the more shallow appearance.
Q: I've heard of these "Chatbox Wars" and aren't you the bad guys?
A: That is a manner of perspective. We are, of course, the "bad guys" to people who consider us their enemies.
However, it is more accurate to say that we are revolutionaries, striving for peace and goodwill against great enmity.
We have been wronged, but we do not dwell on it, we simply continue on and do our best with what we have.