A winterland plotting interest gather/discussion post!!1

[devotedtothecore]

HELLO FRIENDS hope you had a merry winter holidays! A new year is coming, and with it, a new year to plot. Now that the Exsilium story has hit a chapter in which Transports are pretty much running the show for the time being, but it's been a pretty busy time of year for many, it seems like it might be handy to have an OOC get-together to throw around some ideas on Big Stuff For Characters To Do Together, to catch up on plot-and-subplot details (of which I'm not clear on the entirety of myself), for announcements/interestgathers for subplot ideas, and for general asking of questions that other people besides our mods might be able to help answer.

So without further ado:



WINTERLAND SHENANIGANS NEW YEAR'S EVE (AND AFTER) PLOTTING PARTY

Check out the toplevel categories of stuff in the comments, or start your own if I missed any!

Comments

"HELP, WHAT IS GOING ON WITH/TELL ME MORE ABOUT ____"

[devotedtothecore]

Questions by anyone about anything and answers by anyone (hopefully).

[devotedtothecore]

I'd appreciated it if someone could help me catch up on what the DITR is doing lately I want to poke it but I keep feeling the urge to have to read all the related threads and logs of DITR shenanigans so far but time......is no friend.... alas...

I JUST PLAY THE ASSISTANT OTHER DITR MEMBERS DOGPILE ME

[speakveryclearly]

SUFFERING. That's what the DITR is doing. Adapted from here (that "Assistant" character is this one) is a stafflist (note: Sue dropped since this list was made)

DIRECTOR: Saul Goodman
CONSULTANTS: Mike Ehrmantraut, Stephanie Brown
ASSISTANT: Kanaya Maryam
LIAISONS: Alice Roscha (Max B), Feferi Peixes, Sollux Captor, Cesare Borgia, Ella Ellis, Joel (The Last of Us)
GREETERS: Belle, Utena, Anne Boleyn, Jesse Pinkman, Elizabeth (Bioshock)

The organization has a tripartite structure.

1. The GREETERS are the footsoldiers who staff the welcome tent and accepting new Transports. They're pretty much ordinary kind helpful people, and many of the people who work in this capacity aren't formally hired by the DITR, e.g. Ellie from the Last of Us, who is closely involved with cookies.
2. The LIAISONS are more seriously involved in the department. They relay information from the Initiative to the Transports. Example!
3. ADMINISTRATION comprises Everyone Else currently the director and assistant and consultants. They have the most responsibility. The Director most often personally works to arrange direct conferences with members of the Initiative, while the other administration workers help the director make decisions about what to do with this information. These members also coordinate DITR events, for example Kanaya runs the Newcomer-Veteran program, and Stephanie helps the greeters.

This system was invented to deal with Exsilium as it was in 2012, where the Initiative was able to pay 500 marques a month to transports automatically slotted into luxurious rooms of a tall building that tended to stay where it was in a city that stayed fairly constant. Bad things happened monthly, requiring missions, but not changing this overall structure. The welcome tent went up every month without fail, and liaisons made multiple announcements.

How have these things changed after a nuclear bombing, mutiny, and migration to an ice cube? It's more a testament to the principle of inertia that the department still exists at all.

1. The greeters are having more trouble maintaining the welcome tent. The physical location of the transports is changing frequently from month to month and they often have to fend for themselves on resources, even going on supply runs just to secure flour. Their problems are compounded by Jesse Pinkman's "departure" and the upcoming newcomer delay.
2. The liaisons are supposed to relay information from the Initiative's top brass, particularly about the mandatory missions. However, the Initiative's top brass is now dead and the mandatory missions are a thing of the past. For the past several months the liaisons have only been able to function in the context of DITR as auxiliary administration.
3. The administration is aware of these glaring issues with their organization and has to solve them, now completely devoid of the Initiative's authority, while lacking any budget whatsoever that they do not personally earn through full-time Snowsilium jobs.

Updating this model requires a daunting amount of IC legwork, not all of which DITR can personally accomplish. Currently they lack official authority or at least perceive themselves that way because in Exsilium official authority no longer exists and the transports are basically free to run amok. The department isn't necessarily staffed by military experts, more people who like to meddle. Though it would be possible to, for example, assign a liaison to coordinate one of these missions (I will link this post on my deathbed), that does imply they would be coordinating other people, and those other characters can't be forced with a lack of IC authority.

IC frustration with this situation may mean the department won't exist anymore in 2014. At the very least the Director is in talks with Charlie Cutter to get his approval for changing the I to stand for Internal.

TL;DR: DITR has three branches (greeters, liaisons, and administration) and was designed to deal with monthly missions in a static setting. The dynamic setting makes things harder for the greeters, the irregular mission schedule makes things harder for the liaisons, and administration is at the end of its rope dealing with it all.

[devotedtothecore]

ALSO HOW ARE THE INITIATIVE NPCS DOING where are they staying is anyone feeding them and changing their cat boxes, I'm really out of the loop here

[outshine]

I CAN ANSWER THIS ONE. Sort of. It sucks to be an NPC right now because they are effectively tethered to the transporter. They're all staying in the same room with it, or at least in the next room over. (I forget the limit to how far they can go, it's something like five miles? But not very far at all, is the point.) Through some small mercy, they've got a bit of an in with the New Initiative, but they technically don't work for them, unless Vennett and Lowell have decided to take up jobs with them-- but seeing as their skills are outmoded by NI's lack of time travel technology, it wouldn't be the same field. Trish just doesn't like them. Either way, something's better than nothing.

I can't exactly speak for the others, but the tone for the NPCs seems to be trying to find a place to exist and otherwise helping where they can. Lowell and Vennett still run the transporter together, and Trish is trying to figure out how to disseminate the med tech she still has. (I've been mulling it over but ultimately saving the plotting for after the holidays!) Together they're also keeping video diaries, in case anything... else... happens to them.

I think they are mostly subsisting on beer and peanuts, but I could be wrong.

I also cannot comment at this time on what Richard or Maggie are up to though! Because I don't know. I am guessing it sucks to be them too.

CLINIC STUFF

[hymnals]

I have no idea where to put this, so I'll just slide it in here! Adrasteius was head of the ground clinic prior to explosey-time, and while he's fine to still have that ceded to Ashraf, he's definitely going to jump right back in to the clinic and its concerns.

To that end, he's interested in rallying whomever may be interested to find A -- space (ie land) and then materials with which to build a new clinic. I have to go on hiatus imminently (because my brother is getting married; v pesky), but he'll likely post about that once I'm back (near the end of next week).

[outshine]

I think I mentioned this on plurk but you are welcome to Trish's help on whatever you deem reasonable! Space, supplies, etc. I will defer to your judgment on what's reasonable for the setting, and how easy you want rebuilding to be. :') (ofc I'll tag when you post too, but just that you know if you need something from her that doesn't come up on its own, just let me know, we can make it happen.)

[controlledvariable]

So: Steph is involved in both the clinic and DITR, and she's helping work out how the latter is going to be restructed without the Initiative, and one thing she'd be interested in doing is coordinating more closely with the clinic.

Which could mean stuff like making the DITR staff available to help the clinic with set up/maintenance, helping to secure funds and supplies for the clinic and possibly also expanding the training into being more DITR run, since she was doing a chunk of that personally.

If she contacted Ashraf/Adra about that, would they be interested :|a

[devotedtothecore]

LATE TO THE MEETING WITH STARBUCKS hope it's not over

Chrys is pulling together collaborators for base building/upgrading in general (focusing on a few locations including the Transporter), so if Adrasteius wouldn't mind, maybe they could help out in terms of the materials/building front?

Re: Potential transport government

[bloodthirsts]

Since there was so much discussion about a council and elections for Transports after the mutiny (especially now they're running the show) is there any continued movement to ICly hold them? Like will there be nominations and voting on keeping this ball rolling anytime soon.

I've been kind of out of it for the past two weeks yaaay

Re: Potential transport government

[highhealplz]

That's a super good question! I haven't had the time lately to pursue this like I wanted to, but ultimately what it would come down to is a lot of OOC organization to set up a system that's as OOCly hassle-free as we can make it, with the goal of pulling group decisions out of the Transports in regards to How To Handle Stuff. This might need volunteers (and I've had a couple already!), because I don't know if I can pull it off alone on top of modding.

Though I honestly haven't even touched OOC opinions on this sort of thing, so I'm not sure if it's a thing that we as a playerbase fully want. That's an important step too. :|a

Transporting Transports

[ringthenoise]

I'd like to know more about the shuttle and coming and going from earth to the moon. How often does it happen? How long is the trip? (Confirmation would be nice on it being roughly four hours)

What facilities/equipment if any is being KEPT on the moon?

[crocodilesmiles]

It takes 6-8 hours to get to the moon, 4 to get back. It's timing dependent because why not!

The shuttle only runs on request for a group of five people or more; it's too resource intensive to run often, and the shuttle is docked on the moon when not actively needed, to prevent theft or native discovery in unfortunate ways. (Or more because the AI likes keeping it close to its moon base processors.)

BIG PLOTTING/SHENANIGAN IDEAS AND DISCUSSION

[devotedtothecore]

For large-scale shenanigan ideas that would ideally involve a large number of characters/teamwork/involvement!

Re: BIG PLOTTING/SHENANIGAN IDEAS AND DISCUSSION

[devotedtothecore]

Things off the top of my head:

- State of the UE: As brought up recently on the network, the Transports currently have little info on the state and strength of the UE in terms of their capacity to make multiversal war/raids happen; as far as they know, it's possible that the UE may be crippled from doing so in this altered timeline, in which case, the Transports might perhaps technically have achieved the goal of "saving their own worlds from the threat". To solve this uncertainty, it's possible a scouting mission or several might be necessary; what do you guys think? What would your characters think/how might this impact them? (There's also the question of finding out whether the cloned supersoldiers from the previous timeline even exist in this one, and what that would mean for the necessity of the genetics missions...)

- Base Building: I've seen ideas for some kind of main emergency shelter for Transports tossed around, so expanding on that, are there any characters who would be in for setting up a new base/"Hold" facility on the ground? Maybe in a warehouse or two (possibly underground) commandeered from the locals, or possibly upgrading/expanding the space around the current facility housing the Transporter Pad. They could work to set it up with major spaces to get proper missionlike business moving: labs, garages, stockpiles, the kind of stuff that the Hold used to be a place for providing but now has to be re-established from scratch.

Re: BIG PLOTTING/SHENANIGAN IDEAS AND DISCUSSION

[maddeninghatter]

STATE OF THE UE - intelligence gathering:

Options include:
1. Ask the AI to compile satellite data about the surface, and seek out heat signatures and other information about installations there, military or otherwise. Probably this information is encrypted, so perhaps computer hacker type characters would be useful for this. Other characters with military strategy experience could perhaps interpret the data.
2. Get in the spaceship and fly by areas of interest as determined by #1 above. Pilot characters would be especially well-suited for this.
3. Use the transporter pad and hologram technology to slip into areas of interest as narrowed down by #2. Ninja-type characters, assassins, spies, and telepaths would be very useful here.

Base Building:
The Creepy Castle could serve as this temporarily. The entire Museum section is underground, no windows, so it could serve fairly well as a bomb shelter (beware of falling art, however). It also was a large hotel, so if characters are interested in renovating a room, they could stay there as long as they like.

[ETA]

And how about a mission to ELMER'S WORLD to see if it's still a wasteland? This could be a preamble to trying to go home for good.

[governorkang]

Kang and Kate are currently discussing a backup location in the mountains up north, away from the natives, and are probably going to have a couple of the other players check out if there's a spot that's A) defensible and B) near resources.

WTF Happened?

[maddeninghatter]

The announcement that radiation levels had dropped came suddenly, out of the blue, on the tail end of the mutiny. Most of December was devoted to finding shelter and food, as well as exploring the landscape. But there are some essential questions that need answering, in addition to the state of the UE:

1. The past was clearly changed, by some time traveling mission. Was it an accident or on purpose? Paranoid characters might see the mutiny as being cover for this stealth mission. It's worth asking questions about who went on missions in November, and what their purpose was, and if anything untoward happened.

If changing the past is determined to have been accidental, this suggests that time travel missions ought to be put on hold until characters can figure out what happened, so as not to accidentally change the future again. Break, in particular, is concerned about time travel missions inadvertently making things worse — for example, bringing back Nuked!Exsilium or even more horrible scenarios.

Corollary questions are: why wasn't there a nuclear war? what happened to trigger the Ice Age? was it just an environmental catastrophe, or did some government (or other) entity create it?

2. Why mammoths? Why yetis? Why killer penguins? Given the old UE's penchant for genetic engineering, might this be a clue to something similar going on now? Could this be why the natives are so hostile to non-humans?

3. Why are the New Initiative so underground? Why are they paranoid about Transports - and afraid of their own people? Are the New Initiative the good guys or the bad guys?

SPIES AND MOLES and also faustian bargains r us

[undealt]

I'm not really sure where this goes, because it has the potential to be HUGE and also tiny. Gold's main objective is making this go away in relatively short order, but he's pretty prickly about the idea of changing the past. He has a... "if you're stuck in the past, you'll never find your future" mentality.

His main concern is that Transports who prefer to not actively contribute and are sitting around waiting are hindering the mission, so SCHEME A involves the encouraging of cooperation through manipulation and deals. WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU is if you have a character who isn't willing to participate in missions/general shenanigans and you want them to stop being a freeloader, then Gold could probably help make that happen. Making a deal with him doesn't have to be anything major, but if a character has a want or desire that might require powerful magic or something like it, they can always make a deal with him and Gold can call in a favor where it suits him/the objective.

Of course, if you have a character who DOES participate, they can still make deals with him. You never know when a guy might need a personal favor. Yaaay.

SCHEME B is simply this: Gold and Big Peter are discussing spies and moles in the UE and Gold has this nifty ability to steal hearts and control the person the heart belongs to. I'll need some mod feedback on that, because HAHAHA WEIRD GODMODE POWERS ARE WEIRD and I'm not sure how we'd even go about making that happen. I don't think there's any ~magical~ way to detect someone who has had their heart stolen and they can function as normal, but they have to act on Gold's orders and Gold can see everything they see. This is pretty blindly unethical, but even if he doesn't get the greenlight to do it from anyone he views as someone with any kind of authority around here, he might do it anyway. Because don't tell him what he can't do. Assuming I have permission to do that. IDK. It is a thing.

I babbled a lot. I am sorry.

data mining

[phaseshifted]

About a week back, Angel began making inquiries to the Initiative as to how one could obtain access to the United Earth network. This has naturally been met with suspicion and threats, and so she's been working on a plan to propose to other Transports that they should form a team and venture into UE territory to obtain such a connection, where she can use her powers to take them by surprise and pull what she can out while they're off guard.

The rewards: a much greater volume of information from the United Earth's open media, on the past through UE eyes, current events both useless and significant, and possibly future plans.
The risks: Possible death, being tracked back to Exsilium and action being taken against them if the Transport Pad is found out.
The cost: Slightly over a month of time with good luck, longer if things go wrong.

This is not going to happen in the near future-if anything, it will be in several months once the UE AI's path has been altered and the Alternative Energy Arc has been completed in order to provide an IC safety net and OOC time to plot out a course of action for something of this size. ICly, the reason for this delay is Angel having one of her passing visions and getting enough from it that going out right now is a Bad Idea, especially without possible happenings accounted for.

This is the mod response and explanation of the threats facing whatever team chooses to go out, as well as some of the aftermath.

I know I've hardly covered all the information needed to make decisions on this, but with what I have so far, anyone interested?

LITTLE PLOTTING/SHENANIGAN IDEAS AND DISCUSSION

[devotedtothecore]

For less potentially wide-impacting stuff you'd like to throw around!

[devotedtothecore]

On a totally not self-interestbiased note, if your character has any kind of technical or scientific or mysterious-art-y expertise whatsoever and would be interested in collaborating with others, you should hit up this post or Chrys's contact post (or if you'd like to OOCly but your character wouldn't ICly step forward then lemme know and Chrys can make a phone call)

Survival Training

[ringthenoise]

Raiden, the resident security cyborg, is canonically a military trainer and will probably be interested in teaching some classes in battlefield survival and tracking, which is something he had intended to start back on earth before the UE attack.

As it so happens, Raiden learned his tracking skills living in the arctic so he is also a font of knowledge on surviving in a frozen wilderness.

Any character, whether a fighter or not, would be welcome to attend this.

Any interest? (Or if you also play one of the resident teachers, any interest in combining training sessions?)

Time travel shenanigans

[notpeterparker]

I've been debating about a silly future mission about going back in time (like medieval Europe or something) and getting into some wacky time travel shenanigans, like ticking off a king and getting thrown in a dungeon, etc. But I need the help of characters who are troublemakers and would be willing to stir up trouble and make things worse.

PARTY GIFS

[devotedtothecore]

Non-party gifs also acceptable for the enhancement of gif folders.