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singularityooc2012-08-22 11:03 am
cmdr_renegade) wrote in singularityooc2012-08-22 11:03 am
Hypatia Event OOC Planning Post #2
Alrighty everyone!
I've been desperately trying to word this as clearly and succintly as possible and I apologize for any confusion caused by my rambling. Please ask me questions if you feel something is unclear or that I omitted a serious consideration, make suggestions if you have a better plan of attack, and throw in anything else you'd like to contribute. I'd love to hear it. This is a collaboration with all of you.
On that note, I would like to emphasize that I wrote the majority of this before this post happened and I ask you to please bear with me in that most of this post doesn't assume that we'll be ending the game any time soon. While it would not be hard to roll this into an endgame event to follow, it would take me considerable effort to rephrase all of this and that plan isn't entirely set in stone yet.
But we've barely begun and I'm already straying into a tangent! This is not the post for discussing the endgame and moderator positions at Sing, this is for the Hypatia Plot!
Let's begin!
First, I'd like to thank our mods. Despite their busy schedules, our Mods have approved the Deactivation of Hypatia plot and we can start planning it out!
OOC Mechanics
Before we dive into the details of the event, the various sections and general plot structure, and start figuring out how we can set these things in motion, I'd like to take a moment and set up a schedule. Singularity has always had a really diverse and fabulous player-base and I want to make absolutely certain that everyone who wants to participate can participate as much as they like, and can do so comfortably. This is not to say that we should strand the faster taggers, or the players with more free time, and leave them with little to do but introspection and network posts. Rather, I believe the best route is to set up a way to keep everything somewhat...metered and alleviate the stresses related to slow tagging.
RP is pretendy funtime, after all, and I'd hate to see anything about this become less than fun for anyone.
What I propose is that we make a basic schedule and allot each section of this event an amount of RL time. (e.g. The Planetside Trip will span a week of RL time, the section after it, two weeks, the next, three days....etc.)
At the end of that RL time-frame, I'll put up a OOC post in the community and do a ”Where we stand.” summary for OOC purposes. Everyone who has finished tagging and moved on can let me know what their characters are doing, planning, or feeling, and anything else they feel is relevant, and the people who may still be tagging, who were unable to tag as much as they'd like but still want to participate in the rest of the event, or who are gradually coming to a conclusion with their threads can give me the gist of what transpired (the relevant information to their character and the plot) so they don't feel pressured or stressed, they can tag newer things without guilt, and nobody is left waiting around. (The OOC post/Schedule will also encourage OOC planning on a community level, since everyone will know where everyone else's characters stand, what they could have their characters interact with, whether it's public knowledge or not, and potentially really get some good CR going.)
In an effort to keep this as orderly as possible, in addition to an RL schedule, I wanted to really structure each of the major plot sections. Each specific section of this event, at least the portions that will be action/log with a great many characters, should probably be an individual post with top-level threads that separate out location, or time, or what-have-you, as we have done with Space Prom and as we did with the last trips planet-side. It's a good system, I think, and keeps everything together quite easily. It also allows characters who may not be directly involved in a section of the plot to post to the comms without getting swallowed by the event posts and lets faster taggers post outside of the event for things that may take place after the IC time-frame the section is occupying.
Since Singularity has always been a little wobbly with the flow of in-game time (a feature I'm personally immensely grateful for), the amount of time the trip (or any particular section of this plot) would actual take in game can also be decided ahead of time. It's unrealistic to imagine that we could get everyone online simultaneously for any one part of this, so there's no reason to believe that the IC and OOC schedule have to be concurrent. This will let everyone in the game, on whole, get around posts, tag speeds, or topics that may not mesh with them, personally.
Now that I've suggested that, we can get to the fun parts! (Relatively speaking, of course.) If anyone has concerns or opinions about anything above, though, I'd really appreciate it if you could comment on it separately from any of story points below. I assure you, I would not consider it clutter. In fact, it would really help me to keep everything straight so I can make sure every comment in this post gets its due attention.
Plot.
Because of the excellent suggestions in the last post pertaining to this event, I've really been actively trying not to plan anything particularly solid. The idea of this event is to provide opportunities for reactions and interactions because of major conflict. The following sections of the plot, as I see them logically divided, are more a vague structure and become more malleable as we approach the Aftermath section where everything just drops off. I can only speak for my characters and that stage, the Aftermath, is really all about everyone and how events leading up to that point play out. As planning too much of it now can really only hinder the potential for cool things we can do up until that point, I focused on what is effectively the first half of the event.
Very little of this is a sure thing, so all input is completely welcome. I've put notations of how long a section could potentially last, IC and RL, but those are completely open for alteration if anyone has an issue. There are also a great many places where the Mods, if they are able or feel it feasible, can input additional material (be it new or old NPCs or plot and consequences) but that is for them to decide and I'm hesitant to imply the promise of anything on behalf of anyone but myself.
-Inciting Incident (IC Time: Wobbly. RL Time: Until the start of the next section.)
This is less a section of the plot, so much as what is going to cause Shepard to flip a table and start this whole ordeal. While I have no particular or specific incident nailed down (nor do I really need one, if push comes to shove), this will either involve Shepard making a very loud and beligerant, open network post calling Hypatia out and demanding a trip to the planet...or a very flat and calculating post to the same effect. In either case, she will extend an open invitation to come down to the planet with her, imply fairly bold-facedly that it is so they can talk without Hypatia breathing down their necks, and generally try to get every person who is willing and seems competent down to the planet as a group.
Aside from the incident itself, there's not much potential in this section, so I'll leave this short.
-Planetside Trip (IC Time: 2-3 Days? RL Time: A week? More?)
As most of the characters at Sing are generally very suspicious of Hypatia, for any real progress to be made they have to head down to Asphodel and away from where Hypatia can hear them. Overall, the mechanics of this are fuzzy. How they will be getting to the planet, whether by shuttle provided by Hypatia or otherwise, where they'll end up specifically, and what happens when they're down there are all open for ideas, really. I'm not sure how many characters have been down to the planet, in game, but Shepard and...some of the current ME Cast have been and it wouldn't be out of the question to assume they could set up an area to reasonably protect the station-residents from the natural dangers of Asphodel, for the duration of this section.
There's a great deal of NPC potential interaction, here, but I can't speak to how much of that will actually occur.
What will be happening:
Ages ago, when the NPC Lev (the aloof insurgent leader with a penchant for dramatic bible quotes and a good amount of hate for AI) first dragged several station residents down to the planet, he unloaded a considerable amount of data regarding Hypatia and the maintenance ring of the station onto most of them. A barebones plan to do just this event was set into motion (I suspect because Lev wanted people to do his dirty work, but that's beside the point.) Now, seeing as Shepard hoards intel and guards it like a jealous girlfriend with a shotgun, she still has all of this and has been waiting to put it into action. Once she has the opportunity, Shepard will be taking all comers because she's done withthese motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane Hypatia. The threat of the AI has trumped the potential casualties and they're not getting anywhere on returning people home while she's around.
It is very likely that Shepard will deliver this sentiment (and some of the data) as a speech to everyone, collectively, once planet-side...though that thread will be difficult to structure. I suspect the easiest way to manage it will be to have her stalk off, at the end of said speech, with an ultimatum about joining or getting out of the way, so sub-threads can be more manageable.
Does anyone want to weigh in on time planetside? I suspect that, IC, it will take most characters a while to make a decision about actions that could potentially cost lives, whether killing AI is wrong, and all the other moral issues involved here, so a day or two would be ideal. We can surely concoct a plot device to trap people on the planet, if we'd like to extend that window without forcing what may not be a serious moral question for your characters. It's also possible that the Mods may wish to involve the Insurgents, or characters will want to wheel and deal while on Asphodel.
At the end of this window, characters who want to leave (because they disagree with the idea, the execution, etc) can leave and the remaining characters will break into tactical teams. (Hopefully cross-canon. Three man, no more than four because the actual assault log will get out of hand and tag order will be a nightmare.) If you know your character will be down with killing an artificial intelligence, potentially risking the lives of the remaining station residents, and running a military assault under Shepard's direction, right this instant, I'll start up a big list so we can plan teams. If you're not sure because the way things unfold will be a huge factor, NO WORRIES! The only reason I can commit to this so readily is that I'm playing the character who suggested it, I understand waiting for this.
Once that is set up and any additional points anyone would like to add are done, we can move to the next section.
-Training and Arming or, alternately -We Have To Stop This. (IC Time: 7-14 Days? RL Time: Completely up for grabs. No less than 1 week.)
This section is...generally speaking? Is filler.
Given the nature of the planetside trip, the following few IC days will likely be teeming with character drama, arguments, interpersonal conflict, and factioning (She doesn't even go here.) Alongside that, it's very possible we'll have a good number of people who don't know what their characters are going to do, whether they'll side with Shepard or not, until after that trip, and who may tag more slowly than others. This section will allow everyone a little wiggle room (IC and RL) or a break before everything goes to Hell in a handbasket.
After returning from the planet, Shepard is getting to business. The teams have to be armed, geared up, prepared, and possibly trained. Intel has to be gathered, reliable transport secured, and likely a myriad of other tasks.
There is potential for an NPC to be involved here but, failing the availability of one, I'm quite certain one of the Mass Effect crew would be willing to fill in and, failing that, Shepard could orchestrate something, personally. Given all of the prep-work to be done, now that everyone knows the score, there is great potential for player or non-Hypatia NPC issued jobs. Characters who aren't in on the coup, who did not go to the planet, who don't want to participate in the assault but desire money or to help the people going, or who just want to do a job, could be given tasks like: 'Breaking into Hypatia's Armory', 'Hacking to find the override codes for the turrets' or, slightly more mundane and less obvious tasks like, 'Salvaging parts', 'Calibrating mag-boots', or whatnot.
This has a lot of potential for characters that are tech-savvy but...not expressly militant to get in on the action without getting in on the...action.
If it's a PC that has to be doling out jobs, payment could easily come in the form of hacked credits, traded favors, training, or equipment that isn't on the stockpile list. Sky's the limit here.
Really, there's a well of CR here to satisfy the people who want to take advantage of it.
Characters who did not go down to the surface could be told bits and pieces of what transpired and afforded the chance to join in on the Assault or share in the horror at the risk. (Though Shepard will explain, in no uncertain terms, that talking about this plan on the station will have dire consequences from either Hypatia or herself. This is to dissuade derailing of the event, but how attentive Hypatia actually is when it comes to whispered conversations is up for debate. If your character would not be swayed, I'm sure we can figure something out.) Characters who object have a chance to try and stop them, quietly, or to help prepare the innocent, and every character will have ample opportunity to express their feelings and opinions at every turn, building negative and positive CR all over the place.
Then, once we've gotten through that section, the really juicy part:
-The Assault On Hypatia (IC Time: <6 hours RL Time: 5 Days?)
With all that lovely positive and negative CR, all the teamwork and potential boiling rage, it's time to take on Hypatia. The actual circumstances will depend on the Mods, and what they want to throw at us, but it should be interesting. With so many characters involved, with a range of opinions, it's hard to predict what will happen here. The meat and potatoes of this section is really going to be the characters and how they approach the mission, whether they try to disable Hypatia, repair her, or just empty bullets into everything, will really make up how well this section goes. There's a lot of potential for NPC interaction as well as PC interaction before and during the assault (stow-aways, people who want to help who shouldn't, people who want to stop them at all costs, etc) and I'm all for any of it.
What the teams break, trigger, disable, etc is up to the Mods. Similarly, this part of the event has the potential for serious casualties. In fact, I assume most of the characters going will be injured in some fashion. Bangs, bruises, damaged armor, damaged weapons, burns, and other minor injuries at the very least. (One does not simply walk into Mordor, after all.) There's the possibility characters will suffer more serious injuries, if the Mods dole out immediate consequences, or if any of you would like. It wouldn't be out of the question to have a character or two die in the process. Whether the transporter revival is in effect, or not, during or immediately following the event could be worked around.
Injuries will be a great potential for CR immediately following this section, though, given that the Assault teams very likely disabled the hospitals, but that's just one possibility.
Ultimately, no matter what transpires on during the Assault, no matter which team of characters manages to destroy/supplant/deactivate Hypatia, Shepard will be turning things off via thermide grenades. She'll be blowing things up, Vanguard punching consoles, and emptying bullets into everything that looks like it could use a few. If nothing else is predictable, there will be extensive damage done to the maintenance ring. While it may change the tone and the resulting interactions drastically, the plot won't be derailed easily. If anyone has any ideas they want to throw in here, please shout them out.
*This section poses a problem, unfortunately.
While it's more than easy to separate the Assault teams into manageable size, the characters not directly involved in this part are left with very little to do. I would like to keep the RL time allotted to this section reasonably short, so as not to strand them out in the proverbial cold, but I'm not sure how well that would work. Then there's the issue with the actual conflict and mechanics of this section. Each team's thread has to be carefully monitored and interacted with by a Mod, someone in the know, etc, so as to keep them interacting and fighting against something, or else we risk stagnation on this actiony event.
It might be interesting to make a few toss-away NPC journals to represent whatever they end up fighting against, or just hand out icons so people can just use their own journals, and have volunteers (possibly those not directly involved in the Assault) play out the swarm of hench-robots trying to take characters out? Yea? Nay? Suggestions?
- We Broke It (IC Time: Completely up for grabs. RL Time: Until the end of the event? Suggestions?)
Here is where everything gets really fuzzy as far as planning goes. This is the second half of this event. There were a myriad of amazing ideas in the last post and if we get no more and just use those, everything will still be brilliant. The actual situation will also depend, greatly, on the consequences as set forth by the Mods, so it's difficult to actually plan. I don't want to make the game unplayable or impossibly difficult, frought with constant hazards, but the looming threat of impending, uncontrollable disaster is a must. That threat is the biggest motivational factor in this whole event. It will make people, who are potentially very polarized by this time, deal with one another rather than depend on a helpful, albeit crazy, computer.
A few cool ideas:
- An AI could be installed as a jury-rigged custodian to keep a zone or two running so that PCs have somewhere relatively safe to live.
- A rotation of tech-savvy character could be assembled to preform upkeep on damaged systems or locate manual interfaces for said systems. (Potentially opening up new job systems and areas.)
- The majority of the Garden and Residential Zones are rendered uninhabitable, thus forcing characters into a considerably cozier living situation.
The biggest concerns so far, as posed to the Mods already:
- Air and how fast it runs out.
- Gravity. Will deactivating Hypatia affect it?
- Heat retention/rejection. How does this work and will deactivating Hypatia affect it?
Other systems and such are consequence related but if you have a concern/suggestion/question, please go for it!
The end for this event could mean that the residents have to reactivate the AI, to protect them from something worse (thus facing a moral dilemma here), to contain the rift (a possible segue into a 4th wall event), or she could come back online all on her own and return the status quo. I'm sure everyone has a million ideas and I'd love to hear them all, really I would.
I apologize for both the length and...decidedly disjointed nature of this rambling post, but I hope it was clear enough to get my ideas across.
EDIT:
Oh goodness. There's still a few of you I need to respond to, and...I think, a bunch who still need to weigh in, but I think we may be getting excited (which is excellent, in and of itself, and I have a grand list of predicted character affiliations for later) and passing over the first part of this post.
So if everyone could kindly weigh in on the Schedule? Over on this thread. I would really appreciate it.
Just any basic leanings toward how long you think each section should last, IC and RL, what you'd be worried about running too short or too long, and generally when you'd like this event to actually start.
All of that will help me immensely in getting this ball rolling.
The last bit, though, may be more related to any ideas the Mods/some of you have for an Inciting Incident, or what have you, but just letting me know when each of you would like it to start would really help me average a date that works for everyone as best it can.
I've been desperately trying to word this as clearly and succintly as possible and I apologize for any confusion caused by my rambling. Please ask me questions if you feel something is unclear or that I omitted a serious consideration, make suggestions if you have a better plan of attack, and throw in anything else you'd like to contribute. I'd love to hear it. This is a collaboration with all of you.
On that note, I would like to emphasize that I wrote the majority of this before this post happened and I ask you to please bear with me in that most of this post doesn't assume that we'll be ending the game any time soon. While it would not be hard to roll this into an endgame event to follow, it would take me considerable effort to rephrase all of this and that plan isn't entirely set in stone yet.
But we've barely begun and I'm already straying into a tangent! This is not the post for discussing the endgame and moderator positions at Sing, this is for the Hypatia Plot!
Let's begin!
First, I'd like to thank our mods. Despite their busy schedules, our Mods have approved the Deactivation of Hypatia plot and we can start planning it out!
OOC Mechanics
Before we dive into the details of the event, the various sections and general plot structure, and start figuring out how we can set these things in motion, I'd like to take a moment and set up a schedule. Singularity has always had a really diverse and fabulous player-base and I want to make absolutely certain that everyone who wants to participate can participate as much as they like, and can do so comfortably. This is not to say that we should strand the faster taggers, or the players with more free time, and leave them with little to do but introspection and network posts. Rather, I believe the best route is to set up a way to keep everything somewhat...metered and alleviate the stresses related to slow tagging.
RP is pretendy funtime, after all, and I'd hate to see anything about this become less than fun for anyone.
What I propose is that we make a basic schedule and allot each section of this event an amount of RL time. (e.g. The Planetside Trip will span a week of RL time, the section after it, two weeks, the next, three days....etc.)
At the end of that RL time-frame, I'll put up a OOC post in the community and do a ”Where we stand.” summary for OOC purposes. Everyone who has finished tagging and moved on can let me know what their characters are doing, planning, or feeling, and anything else they feel is relevant, and the people who may still be tagging, who were unable to tag as much as they'd like but still want to participate in the rest of the event, or who are gradually coming to a conclusion with their threads can give me the gist of what transpired (the relevant information to their character and the plot) so they don't feel pressured or stressed, they can tag newer things without guilt, and nobody is left waiting around. (The OOC post/Schedule will also encourage OOC planning on a community level, since everyone will know where everyone else's characters stand, what they could have their characters interact with, whether it's public knowledge or not, and potentially really get some good CR going.)
In an effort to keep this as orderly as possible, in addition to an RL schedule, I wanted to really structure each of the major plot sections. Each specific section of this event, at least the portions that will be action/log with a great many characters, should probably be an individual post with top-level threads that separate out location, or time, or what-have-you, as we have done with Space Prom and as we did with the last trips planet-side. It's a good system, I think, and keeps everything together quite easily. It also allows characters who may not be directly involved in a section of the plot to post to the comms without getting swallowed by the event posts and lets faster taggers post outside of the event for things that may take place after the IC time-frame the section is occupying.
Since Singularity has always been a little wobbly with the flow of in-game time (a feature I'm personally immensely grateful for), the amount of time the trip (or any particular section of this plot) would actual take in game can also be decided ahead of time. It's unrealistic to imagine that we could get everyone online simultaneously for any one part of this, so there's no reason to believe that the IC and OOC schedule have to be concurrent. This will let everyone in the game, on whole, get around posts, tag speeds, or topics that may not mesh with them, personally.
Now that I've suggested that, we can get to the fun parts! (Relatively speaking, of course.) If anyone has concerns or opinions about anything above, though, I'd really appreciate it if you could comment on it separately from any of story points below. I assure you, I would not consider it clutter. In fact, it would really help me to keep everything straight so I can make sure every comment in this post gets its due attention.
Plot.
Because of the excellent suggestions in the last post pertaining to this event, I've really been actively trying not to plan anything particularly solid. The idea of this event is to provide opportunities for reactions and interactions because of major conflict. The following sections of the plot, as I see them logically divided, are more a vague structure and become more malleable as we approach the Aftermath section where everything just drops off. I can only speak for my characters and that stage, the Aftermath, is really all about everyone and how events leading up to that point play out. As planning too much of it now can really only hinder the potential for cool things we can do up until that point, I focused on what is effectively the first half of the event.
Very little of this is a sure thing, so all input is completely welcome. I've put notations of how long a section could potentially last, IC and RL, but those are completely open for alteration if anyone has an issue. There are also a great many places where the Mods, if they are able or feel it feasible, can input additional material (be it new or old NPCs or plot and consequences) but that is for them to decide and I'm hesitant to imply the promise of anything on behalf of anyone but myself.
-Inciting Incident (IC Time: Wobbly. RL Time: Until the start of the next section.)
This is less a section of the plot, so much as what is going to cause Shepard to flip a table and start this whole ordeal. While I have no particular or specific incident nailed down (nor do I really need one, if push comes to shove), this will either involve Shepard making a very loud and beligerant, open network post calling Hypatia out and demanding a trip to the planet...or a very flat and calculating post to the same effect. In either case, she will extend an open invitation to come down to the planet with her, imply fairly bold-facedly that it is so they can talk without Hypatia breathing down their necks, and generally try to get every person who is willing and seems competent down to the planet as a group.
Aside from the incident itself, there's not much potential in this section, so I'll leave this short.
-Planetside Trip (IC Time: 2-3 Days? RL Time: A week? More?)
As most of the characters at Sing are generally very suspicious of Hypatia, for any real progress to be made they have to head down to Asphodel and away from where Hypatia can hear them. Overall, the mechanics of this are fuzzy. How they will be getting to the planet, whether by shuttle provided by Hypatia or otherwise, where they'll end up specifically, and what happens when they're down there are all open for ideas, really. I'm not sure how many characters have been down to the planet, in game, but Shepard and...some of the current ME Cast have been and it wouldn't be out of the question to assume they could set up an area to reasonably protect the station-residents from the natural dangers of Asphodel, for the duration of this section.
There's a great deal of NPC potential interaction, here, but I can't speak to how much of that will actually occur.
What will be happening:
Ages ago, when the NPC Lev (the aloof insurgent leader with a penchant for dramatic bible quotes and a good amount of hate for AI) first dragged several station residents down to the planet, he unloaded a considerable amount of data regarding Hypatia and the maintenance ring of the station onto most of them. A barebones plan to do just this event was set into motion (I suspect because Lev wanted people to do his dirty work, but that's beside the point.) Now, seeing as Shepard hoards intel and guards it like a jealous girlfriend with a shotgun, she still has all of this and has been waiting to put it into action. Once she has the opportunity, Shepard will be taking all comers because she's done with
It is very likely that Shepard will deliver this sentiment (and some of the data) as a speech to everyone, collectively, once planet-side...though that thread will be difficult to structure. I suspect the easiest way to manage it will be to have her stalk off, at the end of said speech, with an ultimatum about joining or getting out of the way, so sub-threads can be more manageable.
Does anyone want to weigh in on time planetside? I suspect that, IC, it will take most characters a while to make a decision about actions that could potentially cost lives, whether killing AI is wrong, and all the other moral issues involved here, so a day or two would be ideal. We can surely concoct a plot device to trap people on the planet, if we'd like to extend that window without forcing what may not be a serious moral question for your characters. It's also possible that the Mods may wish to involve the Insurgents, or characters will want to wheel and deal while on Asphodel.
At the end of this window, characters who want to leave (because they disagree with the idea, the execution, etc) can leave and the remaining characters will break into tactical teams. (Hopefully cross-canon. Three man, no more than four because the actual assault log will get out of hand and tag order will be a nightmare.) If you know your character will be down with killing an artificial intelligence, potentially risking the lives of the remaining station residents, and running a military assault under Shepard's direction, right this instant, I'll start up a big list so we can plan teams. If you're not sure because the way things unfold will be a huge factor, NO WORRIES! The only reason I can commit to this so readily is that I'm playing the character who suggested it, I understand waiting for this.
Once that is set up and any additional points anyone would like to add are done, we can move to the next section.
-Training and Arming or, alternately -We Have To Stop This. (IC Time: 7-14 Days? RL Time: Completely up for grabs. No less than 1 week.)
This section is...generally speaking? Is filler.
Given the nature of the planetside trip, the following few IC days will likely be teeming with character drama, arguments, interpersonal conflict, and factioning (She doesn't even go here.) Alongside that, it's very possible we'll have a good number of people who don't know what their characters are going to do, whether they'll side with Shepard or not, until after that trip, and who may tag more slowly than others. This section will allow everyone a little wiggle room (IC and RL) or a break before everything goes to Hell in a handbasket.
After returning from the planet, Shepard is getting to business. The teams have to be armed, geared up, prepared, and possibly trained. Intel has to be gathered, reliable transport secured, and likely a myriad of other tasks.
There is potential for an NPC to be involved here but, failing the availability of one, I'm quite certain one of the Mass Effect crew would be willing to fill in and, failing that, Shepard could orchestrate something, personally. Given all of the prep-work to be done, now that everyone knows the score, there is great potential for player or non-Hypatia NPC issued jobs. Characters who aren't in on the coup, who did not go to the planet, who don't want to participate in the assault but desire money or to help the people going, or who just want to do a job, could be given tasks like: 'Breaking into Hypatia's Armory', 'Hacking to find the override codes for the turrets' or, slightly more mundane and less obvious tasks like, 'Salvaging parts', 'Calibrating mag-boots', or whatnot.
This has a lot of potential for characters that are tech-savvy but...not expressly militant to get in on the action without getting in on the...action.
If it's a PC that has to be doling out jobs, payment could easily come in the form of hacked credits, traded favors, training, or equipment that isn't on the stockpile list. Sky's the limit here.
Really, there's a well of CR here to satisfy the people who want to take advantage of it.
Characters who did not go down to the surface could be told bits and pieces of what transpired and afforded the chance to join in on the Assault or share in the horror at the risk. (Though Shepard will explain, in no uncertain terms, that talking about this plan on the station will have dire consequences from either Hypatia or herself. This is to dissuade derailing of the event, but how attentive Hypatia actually is when it comes to whispered conversations is up for debate. If your character would not be swayed, I'm sure we can figure something out.) Characters who object have a chance to try and stop them, quietly, or to help prepare the innocent, and every character will have ample opportunity to express their feelings and opinions at every turn, building negative and positive CR all over the place.
Then, once we've gotten through that section, the really juicy part:
-The Assault On Hypatia (IC Time: <6 hours RL Time: 5 Days?)
With all that lovely positive and negative CR, all the teamwork and potential boiling rage, it's time to take on Hypatia. The actual circumstances will depend on the Mods, and what they want to throw at us, but it should be interesting. With so many characters involved, with a range of opinions, it's hard to predict what will happen here. The meat and potatoes of this section is really going to be the characters and how they approach the mission, whether they try to disable Hypatia, repair her, or just empty bullets into everything, will really make up how well this section goes. There's a lot of potential for NPC interaction as well as PC interaction before and during the assault (stow-aways, people who want to help who shouldn't, people who want to stop them at all costs, etc) and I'm all for any of it.
What the teams break, trigger, disable, etc is up to the Mods. Similarly, this part of the event has the potential for serious casualties. In fact, I assume most of the characters going will be injured in some fashion. Bangs, bruises, damaged armor, damaged weapons, burns, and other minor injuries at the very least. (One does not simply walk into Mordor, after all.) There's the possibility characters will suffer more serious injuries, if the Mods dole out immediate consequences, or if any of you would like. It wouldn't be out of the question to have a character or two die in the process. Whether the transporter revival is in effect, or not, during or immediately following the event could be worked around.
Injuries will be a great potential for CR immediately following this section, though, given that the Assault teams very likely disabled the hospitals, but that's just one possibility.
Ultimately, no matter what transpires on during the Assault, no matter which team of characters manages to destroy/supplant/deactivate Hypatia, Shepard will be turning things off via thermide grenades. She'll be blowing things up, Vanguard punching consoles, and emptying bullets into everything that looks like it could use a few. If nothing else is predictable, there will be extensive damage done to the maintenance ring. While it may change the tone and the resulting interactions drastically, the plot won't be derailed easily. If anyone has any ideas they want to throw in here, please shout them out.
*This section poses a problem, unfortunately.
While it's more than easy to separate the Assault teams into manageable size, the characters not directly involved in this part are left with very little to do. I would like to keep the RL time allotted to this section reasonably short, so as not to strand them out in the proverbial cold, but I'm not sure how well that would work. Then there's the issue with the actual conflict and mechanics of this section. Each team's thread has to be carefully monitored and interacted with by a Mod, someone in the know, etc, so as to keep them interacting and fighting against something, or else we risk stagnation on this actiony event.
It might be interesting to make a few toss-away NPC journals to represent whatever they end up fighting against, or just hand out icons so people can just use their own journals, and have volunteers (possibly those not directly involved in the Assault) play out the swarm of hench-robots trying to take characters out? Yea? Nay? Suggestions?
- We Broke It (IC Time: Completely up for grabs. RL Time: Until the end of the event? Suggestions?)
Here is where everything gets really fuzzy as far as planning goes. This is the second half of this event. There were a myriad of amazing ideas in the last post and if we get no more and just use those, everything will still be brilliant. The actual situation will also depend, greatly, on the consequences as set forth by the Mods, so it's difficult to actually plan. I don't want to make the game unplayable or impossibly difficult, frought with constant hazards, but the looming threat of impending, uncontrollable disaster is a must. That threat is the biggest motivational factor in this whole event. It will make people, who are potentially very polarized by this time, deal with one another rather than depend on a helpful, albeit crazy, computer.
A few cool ideas:
- An AI could be installed as a jury-rigged custodian to keep a zone or two running so that PCs have somewhere relatively safe to live.
- A rotation of tech-savvy character could be assembled to preform upkeep on damaged systems or locate manual interfaces for said systems. (Potentially opening up new job systems and areas.)
- The majority of the Garden and Residential Zones are rendered uninhabitable, thus forcing characters into a considerably cozier living situation.
The biggest concerns so far, as posed to the Mods already:
- Air and how fast it runs out.
- Gravity. Will deactivating Hypatia affect it?
- Heat retention/rejection. How does this work and will deactivating Hypatia affect it?
Other systems and such are consequence related but if you have a concern/suggestion/question, please go for it!
The end for this event could mean that the residents have to reactivate the AI, to protect them from something worse (thus facing a moral dilemma here), to contain the rift (a possible segue into a 4th wall event), or she could come back online all on her own and return the status quo. I'm sure everyone has a million ideas and I'd love to hear them all, really I would.
I apologize for both the length and...decidedly disjointed nature of this rambling post, but I hope it was clear enough to get my ideas across.
EDIT:
Oh goodness. There's still a few of you I need to respond to, and...I think, a bunch who still need to weigh in, but I think we may be getting excited (which is excellent, in and of itself, and I have a grand list of predicted character affiliations for later) and passing over the first part of this post.
So if everyone could kindly weigh in on the Schedule? Over on this thread. I would really appreciate it.
Just any basic leanings toward how long you think each section should last, IC and RL, what you'd be worried about running too short or too long, and generally when you'd like this event to actually start.
All of that will help me immensely in getting this ball rolling.
The last bit, though, may be more related to any ideas the Mods/some of you have for an Inciting Incident, or what have you, but just letting me know when each of you would like it to start would really help me average a date that works for everyone as best it can.
(oops, I totally fell off the rpwebs for a bit)
Speaking of OOC updates, I think we should try to take about a day or two between each section to make sure everything is clear and working out okay, just to check in on what needs to be handwaved for the sake of plot and to make sure holes will be filled in if someone is getting overwhelmed or needs a break for whatever reason.
Anyway, a lot of posting has kind of slowed down these days, and I get the feeling that people are sort of thumb-twiddling and waiting for something (namely, this) to happen. I'm looking forward to getting this rolling!
Sokay sokay!
With how many players have characters at other games, I can imagine the possibility of being overwhelmed is very great. Being overwhelmed isn't fun and dang it, that is what this is all about.
Despite that delay after PAX, we should have this going in the next two days.
It's so on.