Beyond The Reach(please play as you read)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrxePKps87kProtagonist: Raylan Givens, Justified, Timothy Olyphant
Love Interest: Sarah Manning, Orphan Black, Tatiana Maslany
Best Friend: Hoban "Wash" Washburne, Firefly, Alan Tudyk
Funny Guy: Martin Payne, Martin, Martin Lawrence
Badass: Daryl Dixon, The Walking Dead, Norman Reedus
Mentor: Al Swearengen, Deadwood, Ian McShane
Wildcard: Echo, The Dollhouse, Eliza Dushku
Primary Antagonist: Captain Jean-Luc Picard, SIR Patrick Stewart
Secondary Antagonist: Seth Bullock, Deadwood, Timothy Olyphant
Themesong: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Red Right Hand
The Earth has been ruined. Pollution and the ensuing climate change have made the planet basically uninhabitable for the next 100,000 years. While many teams of salvagers turn the planet inside out for artifacts, mankind for all intents and purposes moved on in an attempt to preserve the species.
The practical applications of the Mass Exodus had an unintended effect. As with all things since time immemorial, those with money or power were favored. They coerced their way onto ships with the shortest travel-times, or most promising pre-existing ecosystems. They could afford expesive cryo-units that would preserve their bodies without aging, and could afford robotic crews to man the gigantic passenger ships while they and their familes, even their human servants and subordinates, slept in ageless, dreamless, peace.
First the wealthy elite came, and took the best ships, the best equipment, and pointed them towards the planets with the best prospects to sustain life. They brought with them the best people. The beautiful, the brilliant, the strong.
And next came the simply rich, those with enough power and influence to keep the dog in cryosleep too, if you know what I mean. And they took great people with them. Engineers, scientists, the merely 'TV Pretty'.
As more ships went out, the prospects dwindled. Each departing ship would be heading to a destination farther away, less known about the planet they would attempt to inhabit, and worse quality equipment and cryounits to help them with the passage.
It was eventually determined that there was a Mendoza line of sorts between the good planets and the bad planets. Those that could be reached within one lifetime of hyperspace travel without cryosleep were eventually called "Within Reach", while those planets so far away a man could live his whole life and die of old age before he got there were termed, "Beyond Reach".
Once all the planets Within Reach had been assigned, ships began getting assigned to other planets, Beyond Reach. This was the poor, the destitute, and the convicts. People boarding these ships knew that each vessel had a very limited number of cryo-sleep chambers, and even those who got into cryosleep would still age as the ship progressed, due to their shoddy quality. They also couldn't afford the expensive AI powered robots to man the ship while they slept anyways, so many who boarded ships due for destinations "Beyond The Reach" did so knowing that they would die on the journey, their only comfort being that maybe their sacrifice would allow a younger person to live out their life on actual ground, with real air and water, and not spend the next 40 or 50 years of their lives as deck hands on a ship in the endless ocean of space, only to die enroute.
Predictably thei striation of the classes led to very different outcomes. Those planets with settlements equipped with the best of people and property to succeed fared well. The planets with without the means or the knowledge, and after a devastating journey on top of that, did not.
Centuries went by. Those planets counted "Within The Reach" eventually began to band together into 'The Federation Of The Reach". They were closest to one another, and they could trade between planets, they could send military forces when there were disagreements or someone needed "encouragement" towards a course of action. The Federation Of The Reach became a singular power, meant to represent order, discipline, compassion. Except when you disagreed with them. But most people never disagreed with them for long.
Beyond The Reach was a different story. It was life without a saftey net, many areas had little law, if any. Because of the nature of the "Coming Over", many planets were sparsely populated, and settlements few and far between. Some people flourish in these circumstances. Some do not.
Once and a while a ship would arrive on one of the planets from the Reach. People who wanted to escape the Federation for whatever reason, those who wanted a fresh start, or those whose debts were too great within the Reach to stay. Overtime those planets with the most favorable climates Beyond the Reach became oasises of freedom for some, or places of immeasurable cruelty for others.Some people lamented the lawlessness. Some reveled in it. But everyone knew, a man makes his own luck Beyond The Reach.
The Federation has begun to take an interest in the planets Beyond The Reach. Their oppression has begun driving not the fugitives from the law away from the Prime Planets, but even perfectly law-abiding, weathly, smart citizens as well who are looking for a new start. The Planets Beyond begin to see some hope for the first time, an infusion of intelligence and money begins making its self known.
The Federation will not allow this without taking their cut, however, and conflict seems imminent.
Raylan Givens, Protagonist: Commissioned as a bounty hunter by the Federation to seek out and find names given to him by the Federation. Some of those names are criminals. Some of them are not. Moral amiguity abounds, and not all his names have a "wanted alive" next to them. Raylan struggles with the pressures put on him by the Federation balanced against the obvious agenda he sees playing out against the people from Beyond The Reach.
Sarah Manning, Love Interest: The first kill order Raylan spared, and the first time he began to question the agenda behind the supposedly altrustic Federation, Sarah is the first successful genetically manufactored human being. She's no clone, she's a wholly original entity, manufactured in a off-the-books Federation laboratory Beyond the Reach. She was stolen from the facility as a toddley by a lab assitant she always believed to be her mother, a woman who died not long after her 10th birthday. She was raised in the streets of a poor settlement, a natural con-artist, but one who has begun questioning if there isn't more to life than she once knew. Raylan was sent to kill her, but was unable to Justify it in his own heart and took her aboard as a prisoner, resolving to get the whole story, if not for himself than for her.
Hoban "Wash" Washburne, Best Friend: Raylan's pilot, best friend, and conscience. Wash is no fighter, and though he'll go along with most anything Raylan does, he's not afraid to make a stand against the Bounty Hunter either. Neither Raylan nor Wash is any angel, and both have dark marks in their past, but Wash is probably the more decent human being, lacking Raylan's ruthlessness.
Martin Payne, Funny Guy: Martin is Raylan's chief engineer and mechanic, a born genius but a born rascal, Raylan was sent out to bring him into custody on charges of theft, lewdness, and immoral behavior by the Federation, but Martin convinced him that it was mostly because Martin had figured out something the Federation wouldn't want anyone else knowing about interstellar travel, and about the Mass Exodus that claimed so many of the original settlers Beyond The Reach. "It's just simple physics, man" Martin is fond of saying, and you find out later that near-instantaneous space travel has been possible all along, but the Federation keeps that a secret to keep their boots on the necks of the populace.
Daryl Dixon, Badass: A survivor, a killer, a deceptively loyal shipmate. Raylan needed some local muscle, Daryl took the job. Unbeknownst to Raylan, Daryl had double crossed Raylan, and sold him out. Raylan evaded the betrayal, and still got his mark, like he always does, mostly due to Daryl's last minute change of heart. He saw a man in Raylan that wasn't nice, that wasn't really kind or generous, but who was honorable, and could pay well. That's enough for Daryl.
Al Swearengen, Mentor: Al has been with Raylan for a very long time. Al's bounty is far, far Within The Reach, and can only be collected in person, with a live Al Swearengen. Al is Raylan's retirement plan, but the cost of making such a journey requires a far larger stake than Raylan currently has. Al is a known criminal, for years he ruled over all sorts of vices on Carthain with only a tencaious will to not be defied and a brain smart enough to see the next threat coming before it got there. Raylan nearly died apprehending him, but has a grudging respect for him despite his terrible past. Al respects Raylan, but that won't stop him from putting a knife in his back if it means staying out of the hands of the Federation.
Echo, Wildcard: She's a million different people, and a valued field agent of Raylan's. Acts as a third piece in a love triangle between Raylan, Sarah, and Echo. Echo's versatility makes her a target wherever she goes, as she's wanted by both the Federation and the Corporation who made her into what she is. Raylan protects her, but he's not sure why sometimes.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Primary Antagonist: Raylan's boss, and a man who to all outer appearances seems full of virtue and benevolence. He has a less than favorable opinion of the people from Beyond the Reach however and eventually becomes a foil to Raylan when it is known Raylan has been disobeying orders.
Seth Bullock, Secondary Antagonist: Raylan's younger brother, and a outlaw who defies the Federation at every turn. Beginning the series, Raylan gets word that he is to apprehend and bring in his brother from Picard. Eventually he has the chance, and Raylan can't do it. Seth promises Raylan that before it's all said and done, they'll be on the same side. He's not wrong.