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

[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]

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS I feel like I understand the state of things much better now!!

Is the DITR info publicly available in some IC format, like an internal network page or a posting somewhere on a sheet of paper in a moonbase hall or the like?

And also is the DITR making any plans to possibly extend relations-bridging to forming something between the New Initiative and Transports?

[speakveryclearly]

The roster I linked should be available IC as a network page.

Though the Director has been planning talks with the New Initiative, overall the Department has its doubts about the benefits to either side of letting the weak New Initiative boss around the freedom-loving Transports, and the new initiative is not currently the department's #1 priority. Viable #1 priorities are anti-UE war effort and transport aid, the latter of which Consultant Brown (as well as Liaison Peixes) is currently promoting. There's been a new plurk between Lenga/Justine/Tess/Heather (me and Goodman and Brown and Peixes) with discussion of those directions, which I will try to convey some time later, sorry I just got back from an Eve party. Happy new year, incidentally!

[devotedtothecore]

Happy New Year to you too!! And good to know these things. (No rush, I know it's a busy time of year for many too!)

[controlledvariable]

Having info ICly available is a really good idea :|a

as Lenga said, there's some discussion going on rn that will be branched out to all ditr players soon and will be followed up with an IC post, but i'll add "a public info page" to the list of ideas