I may be yelling unheard into the uncaring void, but I’m gonna keep yelling about this au anyway.
I think I’m gonna call it the Corporate Problems AU, because this ship is full of Mira corporation’s Biggest Problems!
This au sits on the foundations of a lot of background worldbuilding that, admittedly, isn’t mine. At some point years ago, I read the Mimicry series on Ao3 by missteavee, and it was so good that it irrevocably rewired my brain, and completely changed the way that i view Among us. That worldbuilding is now the only thing I can think of as among us story cannon. So. It’s fantastic go check it out. There are a lotta elements that are important in like, How This World Works, but imma put a summary of the Important Bits (plus a few probably less important bits, because its fun) at the end of this post.
Because I have been Thinking about The Characters. I have ideas and concepts, but no plot. Which is a problem. But we’re not gonna think about that right now because Concepts and Characters are Fun!
The Main Cast, the crew, are Scar, Grian, Impulse, Skizz, Tango, Jimmy, Etho, Pearl, and Gem. All of them are hiding something, and all of them lied, frauded, or hacked their way onto the ship so that as far as Mira’s databases are concerned, this is a perfectly normal, approved crew traveling to Polus and following all regulations. They are not. And no one group is aware that none of the others are legitimate Mira employees either! This ship houses Chaos.
For starters, the integrity, (the name of the skeld ship, which I am treating as a standard class of Mira corporate space ships, each of which has its own name) actually belongs to a group of space pirates. Grian, scar, and jimmy stole the ship, disconnected it from all Mira systems, and proceeded to make a number of definitely illegal modifications, including making it suitable as their full-time living space. Grian used to work for Mira as a xenobiologist, until he managed to discover Mira’s corporate-genocide-coverup. Scar had been a pirate moving himself around Miras various corporate sectors and stealing tech and information for years at that point, and jimmy was Grian’s “I know a guy” computer tech guy to help them gut the ship of all of Mira’s influence.
Etho was the original founder of Mira, before it grew into a huge company, and stayed on the board as the primary influence in the company as it grew, until the rest of the board decided he had a few too many morals, and attempted to assassinate him via space-transport-malfunction. He ended up stranded on an unexplored planet, but survived. But that happened decades ago. He has not aged. He might possibly be immortal now, we have no idea.
Tango is an imposter, native to Polus, and a soldier in the very much active war that Mira is completely covering up. He doesn’t know that most of Mira’s employees don’t know that they’re fighting a war. He’s tech-savvy, and a very good shapeshifter by his species standards. He’s not red, because Grian’s red, but I can’t decide if I want to make him a light “frost” blue, or the shade of blue that’s literally called “tango blue”. Probably the latter. Im not sure if there’s gonna be another imposter on the ship, or who they are if they’re there.
For the rest of the crew, I’m still kinda figuring out What Their Deal Is. I think I’ve got impulse and skizz down, but from here on out, things might be subject to change.
Impulse is a bit of an inventor, with credentials in physics, and a lot of experience dabbling in other fields as well. He discovered or created something that the government was not thrilled with. I think that thing might have been a fully sentient, sapient AI, and I think that AI was skizz. After having his research publication denied, and the narrative equivalent of the FBI showing up at his house to try and confiscate his research and tech, he and skizz went on the run. They stole some advanced tech, probably from Mira, to build skizz a hyper-realistic, or possibly partially organic body, and decided that hacking into Mira’s databases and getting themselves an extended stay on Polus, one of the most remote research stations, would be a good way to hide.
Gem and peral I am much less sure of.
Gem is the ship’s acting medic. She has absolutely no medical experience. I wanted to have scientist gem, because I think that’s a fun character. She’s a xenobiologist and anthropologist. Possibly officially, possibly not. She wants to get to Plous for her own reasons, and is definitly not actually a miracle employee. One idea I had was to make her a retired or hiding mercenary or bounty hunter or something, but I’m not sure. I also kinda want to make her the other imposter, just because she gets imposter so frequently in the recent among us streams.
Peral, I really have no idea. She’s another candidate for the other imposter. She’s probably not human either way. She is a chemist though, that part of her credentials, at least, isn’t fake.
You throw all of these characters into the close quarters of a spaceship for 6-9 months, and intrigue, secrets, and shenanigans ensue! That’s about all I got for plot so far. Maybe overthrowing Mira, who knows.
For context, here’s the other worldbuiling this au rests on:
Imposters— they are a species of sapient predatory mimics who are native to the planet Polus. When Mira scientists first set up on Polus, they drilled into one of the imposter-inhabited caves, and had a rather disastrous first contact. The cave they drilled into was a steam cavern, seemingly inhabited by hundreds of little alien worms. Mira labeled these worms as Polus Lifeform Type x223, and deemed them of high scientific interest. Recently, the company had issued an order that these worms are very scientifically valuable, and to collect and flash-freeze samples en masse. These worms are actually the newborn stage of imposters, and the steam caverns are their nurseries. None of the average Mira employees are aware of this. The imposters are in a fully militarized guerrilla warfare against a force attempting to genocide them. It is heavily implied that this is not the first alien species they have encountered and had to fight off.
Crewmates— the crewmates are a narative-equivalent-of-humans-species called Humana/humanae. They’re basically humans but a little to the left. Particularly in that they have very colorful eyes in any visible shade. The colour of their eyes is very important, especially in the dominant culture that we see. The colour of your eyes is your name, and while in small groups, like on a ship, going by base colour (ie. Blue, or yellow) is fine, generally, people are referred to by their “perfect shade” that is your specific colour name, (ie saffron, or crimson, or cerulean, etc). I think your colour generally dominates your dress, and is the colour of your MIRA space suit. They have a cultural idea of modesty that includes covering the face in public, generally by wearing a colorful vail, and is why no one typically takes off their helmets. Aside from the heads of the company and a few select high ranking staff and scientists, none of the Humana know that they ate fighting in a war. Mira claims, and bases all their released protocols and information on the idea, that imposters are an infective parasite, not a sentient species, and they are very careful to keep just the right about of stress and fear that no one has the incentive to look too closely at the evidence. (Yes I have picked out specific colours, to the hex code, for each of the characters)
