(Thought the above title for the project would be better).

This is a factually-based universal news role-play based on in-game events that will continue round after round.  It's purpose is to express actual game-play events by players in all of the galaxies.  The following guidelines will apply:

1.  Only players can participate. 

Players must be playing in one of the current rounds in any of the galaxies.  If a player finishes a round and takes a break from IC, they should try and explain their empire's disappearance from the universe, hopefully in such a way that leaves the player able to rejoin and continue their Empire's historical role play at a later date. 

2. Context: explanation of the IC universe: 

In the role-play, the term 'Revolution of the Universe' will be the way to refer to the round number. Every role-play entry will include the Galaxy, The Week, the Year, and the Revolution or 'Round' (see # 3 below for example). 

Now, there is more to the notion of the 'Revolutions of the Universe' than just the round number.  In essence, it is a sort of doctrine to explain what happens in role-play when the IC galaxy rounds end, and how our empires continue to exist in the role-play round after round.

The idea is that when each round ends, the equivalent to a collapse of the universe has occurred.  To explain how it is that each time the same empires return to have a presence in the universe round after round, I've come up with this general context of the IC universe:

The players are what I call 'Immortal Overlords or Ascended Being'.  In the role-play 'overlords' have the ability to be suspended outside the universe at the time of the universal collapses, and thus after the subsequent big bang that re-occurs after each collapse, overlords all begin a new empire with the lifeforms that have evolved (you can change your race every round, but you should keep you empire name and explain how your racial traits have changed this revolution ( a brief evolutionary background or history of your race at the beginning of each round would work).   

This collapse and subsequent re-expansion of the universe is what is called the 'revolution of the universe'.  And they can be counted, round by round.  The subsequent battles between families of players is thus in the role-play a seemingly never-ending contest of overlords or ascended beings fighting for supremacy over the entire universe.   

3.  Narrative point of view. 

For the sake of textual cohesion, the 3rd person, limited-omniscient point of view must be used.  That is, the narrator can be all-knowing regarding the known ongoing events in the universe and all-knowing within his own character's mind, but they cannot, of course, be all-knowing about other players or their empires.  They will necessarily be 'limited' in what they are able to say about other players' empires.

example of post: 

"Week 23, 3, Andromeda Galaxy, - 25th Revolution of the Universe.

The war between the Draconians and Karal Families had continued for nearly a 1000 years. 

Our hero, Drason Gordon, planet 42,23,9 was running across the battle scene to a crash-landed enemy fighter. He threw a grenade into the exhaust manifold and leaped over the edge of a bomb-crater.  He was stunned for a moment by the explosion, due to his proximity, but within a moment, counted his limbs, got to his feet jumped and rolled over the rim of the bomb-crater and started unloading his proton clip on a group of enemy droids.  Meanwhile, enemy operatives had landed on the planet and had placed charges on a number of laser turrets.  The resulting explosions were echoed around the entire planet.  Apparently the Draconian Empire enemy was preparing for another assault.  They seemed intent on breaking the Kara Empire's potral on planet 23,76:8.  Drason Gordon, heard his commanders voice in his headset: "Gordon, that was just another 1000 laser turrets destroyed by Draconian Agents!  Indications are we're losing this battle and fast, what is your remaining force count, Commander?"  Drason checked his helmet's heads-up display.  "We're down to 277,000 soldiers, General, and our droid force has been wiped out.  We won't be able to handle another assault, Sir!"  "Sad to hear that, commander, because we've just picked up another 980 enemy transports on approach to your position.  Our fighter forces have been annihilated."  "[w00f!]!"  "What was that commander?"  "Apologies, Sir!  We won't be able to hold the portal, General."  "Alright Gordon.  Evacuate your remaining forces through the portal.  We're blowing this planet."  "Yessir!"  The general slammed his fist down on the consol.  "Get this defense station out of here ASAP.  System --,--.  Maximum speed."  "Yessir!", screamed the bridge officer.  The general knew the Draconians would take the entire system: 26 planets with over 100 trillion inhabitants. A huge blow to family 3652.  This might be the turning point of the entire war.  "Send word to all family members to dismantle all infrastructure and evacuate the system."  "Sir?"  The communications officer was dumbfounded!  "Do it!"  Send the order NOW!"  And the entire communications bridge staff started scurrying around.  General Koar looked on the visual display: where laser turrets had been there were now only gleaming craters.  The Draconians had sent another wave of bombers.  "This is the beginning of the end", he whispered to himself." 

4.  Information security:

Role-players should be selective in terms of what information is presented in the role-play.  The idea is that the role-play will unfold as rounds progress, and, therefore, many players might benefit or suffer due to information you might post.  Thus role-players should not release just any information to the role-play.  It goes without saying you probably should not include your family's invasion plans, fleet deployments, locations of Defense Systems; but it also applies in reverse:  It is bad taste to post such information you have collected about your enemies' as well!  Information obtained through ops, should be included with due sensitivity. For example, including information obtained through infiltrations about enemy fleet size, agent counts, etc, will be considered bad taste, and might even attract attacks against you and your fam.  Role-players should use common sense in determining what information to include is appropriate.  Censoring or leaving blank system coordinates, fleet sizes, etc., is an option the poster can consider using.

5. Races

The characters can be of any custom race and thus the player can be very liberal about their physical descriptions, abilities, etc.  But, if a character is one of the standard races: partaxian, revalon, quantam, camaar, wardancer, there are more limitations:  Standard races should have similar traits / phyiscal attributes as other players' characters of the same standard race. There is, of course, leeway for variation, as, for example, a group of wardancers on colonizing one planet race would continue to evolve perhaps in isolation from other wardancer colonies, and thus undergo a certain amount of specization or evolutionary changes, even to the extent that interbreeding between them might become untenable.  But, more or less, the writer would be limited to describing his wardancer's physical traits and abilities in line with other RPer's previous descriptions of wardancers. 

6.  Classes

The characters must be of one of the following classes:  agent, wizard, soldier, civilian.  Their roles, abilities, and occupations in the story would have to be in-line with the occupations and abilities available to their race.  However, any class can potentially have any occupation and here is where imagination can be used quite liberally.  For example, wizards don't have to be the same as all other 'wizards' in the universe.  They can have various occupations - monks, priests, hermits, even business tycoons who are wizards only in secret, etc..  And likewise, the character's class can change over time.  Perhaps an RPer wants to write about how a quantam mining facility operator becomes first a soldier in his empire's orbital forces (a fighter pilot), and then, having crash landed some planet's moon, is harbored by a group of partaxian monks who teach him some magic, whereupon, after eventually being rescued by is empire's military forces, becomes a quantam wizard and goes around the galaxy on wizard-like missions.  An imaginative RPer can develop their character in virtually any way they like.

7.  Time-line and Relativity.  There needs to be some cohesion in terms of time: length of time it takes to travel between star systems, etc..  How many 'Earth years' there are in an in-game tick.  I have devised the following conversion system:

1 universal week (tick) = 100 Earth Years

This is not determined arbitrarily.   This is determined under the assumption that the theory of relativity is correct, and that faster than light-speed travel (by conventional means) is impossible.  Thus, the maximum speed at which a ship can travel in this role play will be %100 of light speed.  Camaars, of course, are the exception, who, for some reason, can travel double the speed of light.  (I'll leave the explanation for how Camaars are the only ones who can travel double the speed of light for someone who writes a Camaar character).  Thus, according to the theory of relativity,  approximately 100 'Earth-years' of history enfolds every tick or 'universal week'; approximately 5000 'Earth-years' of history every 'universal year'; and, depending on the length of the round, as many as 180,000 'Earth-years' of history every round. This would be, of course, impossible to write about in any detail, which makes it necessary for the RPer to focus on the main round events only and only insofar as they relate to their inividual main character, who, if you haven't guessed by this point, must be an immortal!

8.  Immortality

In order to make this work in line with the theory of relativity, and what might be as long a backdrop of 180,000 'Earth-years' of history every round, the main character must be immortal.  This is not to say that every character in the story must be immortal.  I have devised the following doctrine to explain how immortality works into the RP:

Soldiers, Agents, and Wizards are necessarily all immortal.  This is an easy way to explain how their number doesn't diminish every tick.  Thus, in the IC universe, when an overlord (player) builds a unit that unit has his genes altered so that they simply no longer age.  They can, of course, be killed in the many ways they are killed during rounds; they do not gain any special powers by being immortal.  They simply do not age.  Civilians, on the other hand, do age.  They are represented as an empire's population.  Out of this population, however, there are always people willing to be recruited for service to the overlords as immortals.  Thus an RPer can start the role-play by explaining the recruitment process, and how his character was immortalized

(More guidelines to be included as they are determined)

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FAQ:

Q:  I do not want to write a thousands years of history every post. 
A:  Don't even try.  Focus on your character's actions in light of his or her immortal status.

Q:  I don't want to write about what my character does every freaking 100 year tick.  How do I write my character's actions?
A:  Think of a posting in the RP as a day in the life of your immortal character, and only briefly allude to the general changes in your empire since your last post as background information to your characters current endeavor.  A good way to begin the post is to remind the reader where your character left off, what has happened since your last post, and where / when he is now.  Focusing on how your character interacts in only the MAIN round events will be sufficient.

Q:  Ok.  Hold on a second here. The rounds have different numbers and you're saying these numbers will represent that galaxy's place in the IC universe's time-line.  But Capricorn is, what, round 3?  And Pinwheel is about round 50.  So how will this roleplay work if people from different galaxies are posting in the same RP?
A:  Capricorn, being round number 2 or whatever it is now, is in the past.  Pinwheel, being round 49 or whatever it is now is in the future relative to Capricorn.  Milky way, Andromeda, Sagittarius or any other galaxy is thus placed into the universal time-line according to it's round number.  Therefore, if you are writing about your character and / or empire in Pinwheel round 49 for a while, and then, after Pinwheel round 49 is over you and switch galaxies and play in Capricorn, you continue your character in the past: the younger you.

Q:  If one galaxy is operating in one time-line, and another galaxy is operating in another, how do rpers from different galaxies interact with each other?  Like, for instance, is time-travel possible in the IC universe?
A:  No, time travel is not possible in the IC universe, and so RPers will only interact with other RPers in their own galaxy.  In essence, this role-play will contain a separate role-play for each galaxy, operating within that galaxy's own time-line, virtually independent from the others.  However, this is not to say that a player cannot switch galaxies and start writing how his character in another time-line.  A player might write about his character in Capricorn round 4, for example, and then, after Capricorn round 4 ends and the RPer switches galaxies and plays Pinwheel round 52, he continue his character in that future time-line.  It is also possible for an RPer who might have a VIP account to play multiple rounds at the same time, and thus write how his character interacts in different time-lines at the same time.

Q:  Why isn't time travel possible in the IC universe?
A:  To keep this role-play simple.  We can avoid temporal paradoxes and contradictions, and, generally, keep the role-play easy to follow.

(more FAQs to be included as they are determined)

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Continuous Project Development:

Now, as I am not that experienced as an RPer, I'd appreciate help in determining how we could make this on-going IC Universal Roleplay work.

Please post in this thread any suggestions, additional ideas, comments, and, of course, your commitment to this project.  Let's work on these guide-lines together.

I hope to compile the RP posts, edit them with players' approval, and then submit it all for publishing as an e-book.  Who knows, maybe we can even make a little money doing this?