Fabienne Gschwind - Star Map

So, the small wiry, and daredevil machinist came aboard the Abhysal .

Nicolai, or simply called Nemo, also had a tragic story behind him. His first brain-scan at the age of eight certified severe pedophilic traits. A shock for the family and lack of understanding for Nicolai, who was taken out of public school and had to attend a special school.

The brain scans a year later and two years later still showed a severe pedophilic disorder, and several neurological reports said it was only a matter of time before this dangerous streak would breakthrough and he would commit his first sex crime.

At the age of 13, Nicolai could do statistics better than any math student. Time and again, he told doctors, judges, and psychiatrists that he was a false positive. The brain scan had not worked on him, he said, and he was one of ten people worldwide to have been falsely tested. But everyone just smiled mildly.

His fate was predetermined, at the age of 16, he was to be relegated to the "plastic waste team". There were all those whom the brain scan classified as a danger, but without ever having committed a crime. They lived in a luxury resort on the Kerguelen Islands, from where they cleaned Antarctica of thousands of tons of plastic waste produced by mankind in the 20th and 21st centuries.

That same year, he was flown there for summer vacation. The people were all nice and he had a chance to talk to the dozens of men who had also been banished for having a pedophilic streak. They all, but really all, affirmed that they were innocent and would not hurt anyone. They all claimed that the brain scan had not worked and that they had tested falsely positive.

Nicolai was horrified.

Barely back, he had been given an ankle bracelet and had become accustomed to making a wide berth at every kindergarten and school. He always looked around in a hurry to avoid getting too close to a child. His family could not bear his situation and moved to a farm in the Carpathians. Through correspondence courses, Nicolai completed his compulsory schooling and otherwise spent time with his two dogs and horse. He hardly left the farm and avoided other houses or villages like the plague. The idea that he would spend the next 100 years of his adult life living on a deserted island collecting plastic waste was so absurd as to be merely surreal. But he could count on the support of his family. Everyone was feverishly searching for a way out of exile. And they found it.

StarMap promised the police to take care of Nicolai in the future. From now on, he will only be in StarMap spaceships or at the company's headquarters on special occasions. If he had to leave the premises for unknown reasons, the police would be contacted immediately.

Thus, on his sixteenth birthday, Nicolai was picked up by StarMap to be taken to the training spaceship. In the confined space of the ship, Nicolai felt freer than ever before. The other adult crew members didn't care about his possibly pedophilic streak, and he quickly became a competent and reliable ship's engineer.

He started a video blog, always posting about life in subspace and all sorts of technological aspects. He also wrote children's stories, which were very popular on Earth.

After four missions and 42 years in subspace, Nemo, as everyone called him, was a living legend and the longest-serving subspace veteran. Two generations had grown up with his stories and adventures. The brain scan was officially deemed "false positive," and Nemo was allowed to return to Earth.

But Nemo would hear no more of it; deep inside him hummed a hatred of humanity, and he vowed never to set foot on Earth again. Just like his namesake from the novel by Jules Verne. In any case, he knew nothing but subspace and outer space, and as soon as he was on a planet, he felt land sick.

So, it was clear to him that he would work for StarMap for the rest of his life.

The money he earned, he distributed to all kinds of charities or spent it to equip himself for all his expensive hobbies.

What did the crew members look like and what were their characters?

In the 24th century all peoples had mixed strongly and it was hardly possible to classify the origin of somebody by his appearance. On the passports "Species: Homo Sapiens" was written and only the place of birth was listed. But it was fashionable to go back to one's roots. With gene analysis, family trees, ancient geography and history books, people tried to trace their kinship. Most of them carried genes from all ethnic groups and so everybody could choose his favorite ancestors according to his mood.

The character traits of the people on board were not extremely pronounced and everyone had a very calm, peaceful and moderate character. A crew that had fights or drama every day was good for movies and TV but certainly not in reality. For such long-term missions StarMap paid very close attention to the fact that only psychologically absolutely stable people were on board. Because on board it was a matter of being able to intervene in an emergency. Everyone had to work calmly and efficiently under high pressure and danger to life and was not allowed to panic under any circumstances. Specially developed psycho-hypnosis programs and breathing exercises helped the crew to prepare for the worst emergencies and also to cope with their life in seclusion. All of them were on their second mission and after decades of psychic training, none of them would panic if suddenly aliens would storm on board and for such cases there were also drugs that would dampen the emotions and make the crew even more efficient. But despite the general similarity of the characters on board, each of them had their own peculiarities.

Jay was tall and broad-shouldered, large muscles were bulging under his dark skin. Many people thought he was a professional soldier or wrestler, because that's what he looked like. When asked about his ancestors, he liked to claim that they were Maori warriors. He preferred to wear military clothes and tried to be always and everywhere correct, an exemplary officer, as it should be for an ideal ship captain. From time to time he felt angry about his fate and dreamed of taking revenge somehow. But this usually lasted only a short time and these dreams of revenge had almost completely faded away in the many therapy sessions. He did not know what to do after the Abhysal Mission. Continue to work like Nemo? Or retire somewhere? Occasionally he dreamed of meeting aliens and earning his living as a mercenary. The others laughed at his dreams. But the discussion of meeting aliens could fill whole evenings and was a valued topic of conversation. Just as people could have full-length discussions about possible lottery winnings.

Joe also dreamed of meeting aliens, it was also one of the reasons she had signed on. To be the first human to encounter and explore a new race! She was of medium height and had brown hair, which she liked to dye red. She had grown up on the flanks of Stromboli in the Mediterranean, but she claimed to have Viking ancestors and liked to talk about the Normans who had come as far as Sicily around the year 1000. She was wiry and athletic. In her youth she had participated in almost all sailing races and even sailed the Route de Rhum solo. She didn't mind loneliness and the more dangerous it became the better. She was rather the joker of the crew and always up for something funny.

Lex was the complete opposite. She was rather an anxious character and had an unsurpassable talent to see worst-case scenarios everywhere. This was quite practical because with her pessimist the crew was prepared for all unthinkable eventualities. Meeting aliens would be a horror for her. What if they destroyed Kiki? When asked about her ancestors, she would only reply "the corner between Korea and Japan or something." Like everyone in the crew, she had gone through over a decade of excessive athletic training with Jay and her round chubby body was now lean and well defined. Anyway, many people on earth would have been jealous of the crew's well-toned bodies.