PLOT ENGAGEMENT (ARCHIVED)

[larkers]

> PLOT ENGAGEMENT (ARCHIVED)

What is Plot Engagement and how does it work within Meadowlark? This is the page where players can come discuss with us how to facilitate plots within the setting. However, there will be occasions where a plot doesn't work within Meadowlark's world, and we'll suggest alternative routes. For small worldbuilding or gameplay details, please direct your question to the FAQ. If you're ever not sure if you're at the right page, don't worry—we'll help you get it sorted out. We know we have a load of info!

WHEN WILL YOU HEAR BACK?

◉ All Plot Engagement answers go out on Sunday, except during events.
◉ The deadline to submit a question and ensure you'll hear back from us on Sunday is 11:59 PM UTC on Saturday.

PLOT ENGAGEMENT INCLUDES

◉ Player plots! If you'd like your character to become a mafia boss, this is your place to start. Typically, this involves anything that could impact the setting or other player characters.
◉ Character career advancement that gives the character additional power or status within the setting.
◉ Metaplot exploration and information! We plan all events to give characters something to explore after the event ends. This is the place to do it!

SUBMISSION TIPS

◉ Specify what your character is looking for when they're investigating. What questions are they asking and what angle are they trying to explore?
◉ If you have a specific goal in mind but don't know how to reach it, please let us know.
◉ If you link a thread to us, please summarize it! That helps us process the plot in question.
◉ Don't worry about not knowing the setting like the back of your hand before you submit the plot—that's up to us! We're here to help you with any adjustments to get you on the right track.

NOTES & THINGS THAT YOU CAN HANDWAVE

◉ Characters always start out in entry level positions. Characters can update their skill sets to the 2512 standard through paid apprenticeships or internships.

◈ If a character is advancing within a major corporation (as noted on the Setting or Locations page) or one of its subsidiaries, we will need to approve this advancement.
◈ If a character becomes a supervisor at a local bar or other small business, we do not need to approve this advancement.

◉ Joining the police force within a city requires three months of IC training (six months OOC).
◉ We'll approve whether someone has social media fame, but we will not be providing social media follower counts. Once you have a plot for how to use those followers, that's where we step in!
◉ All Morningstar business goes on our Morningstar page. Please feel free to discuss specific plots here (including joining), and go there for signups and anything else.
◉ Characters getting jobs, finding apartments, participating in the fighting rings, getting married, making workplace friends, the creation of minor NPCs, etc. do not need to be run by us. Please let us know if these expand into player plots or other plot bits!

QUICK LINKS

◉ FAQ: For small worldbuilding or gameplay details.
◉ Setting: Our setting page! We'll update as needed.
◉ Jobs: A reference for who's working where!
◉ Locations: Both major and minor locations within New Amsterdam, as well as outlines for other megacities.
◉ Mod Contact: For wider game concerns.
◉ The Story So Far: Gamewide plot events up to current (your CTRL+F best friend!).
◉ NPC page: Includes NPC blurbs and inboxes.
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> NAVIGATION

Comments

[larkers]

Hi Iola!

We've covered a lot about the art scene in New Amsterdam in the past, so we'll collect some links for you, if that's okay!

Early question about the art scene.
A bit about art auctions. This is about a specific kind of art - the shrines about the Displaced - but we feel it still gives you a good gist about the world as a whole!
A recent question.

Otherwise, we believe that Jen has had Markus working this circuit for a while, so you'll want to make sure that Diana gets in touch with him!

We will say that opening a gallery herself may be a rather unreachable goal given the state of the world and how these galleries tend to cater to an elitist clientele. Getting the money to do this would be difficult to obtain, so she may want to network through the auctions above and try to work with the galleries around the city.

[larkers]

Hi again, Kira!

Prompto has definitely put enough work in to start getting some rudimentary gigs! He will need to actively seek out opportunities at this early stage, but his friendship with Hideki will help him get certain jobs (ones more geared toward the party/music scene). The jobs will likely be a combination of photography and some social media management as smaller gigs won't necessarily have that angle well-covered.

That said, these jobs would not be enough to support him financially. He'd have to be at it for three or so months to start transitioning over full time, moonlighting between his day job and future photography career.

[larkers]

Hi! We're happy to do so.

The reason is pretty much as stated before! But to expand: the key thing is that Morningstar lacks infrastructure and a network at the moment in New Amsterdam. They don't even have a safehouse set up (for Morningstar business with refugees who need help), and the current PCs aren't trained to do Morningstar's work. Expanding beyond that and not linking up with some of the contacts that El and Gaby provided for Peggy and Fitz is thinking too big. They need a foundation right now.

As an additional note, Morningstar does tend to recruit from impoverished people who can make a stand themselves! They know that's the audience they're seeking to help, so that would be their focus once the infrastructure is in place.

Rebuilding Morningstar's network in New Amsterdam is going to take a lot of work, and they are also still allowing the Displaced to rebuild their reputations with Morningstar as a whole. While El and Gaby are warmer toward them - and people in other cities see them as superheroes - they need to know the Displaced won't rush and will take the time to create a fortified system in New Amsterdam.

[revlon]

Hi mods!

Just wanted to clarify a few things! As per our last engagement re: the NPC location, we did specify that it would serve as Morningstar HQ in order to provide a foundation for the rebuilding efforts moving forward because you had mentioned Gaby pointing out the need for a location separate from the Displaced's. We see in your thread with Tifa re: recruitment efforts that they're lacking a safehouse for Morningstar business with NPC refugees and that PC agents need to be trained — we feel this proposal would provide a place to make both happen.

If the size of the location is the issue, we'd like to clarify that we were thinking along the lines of a small community theatre space which would have just enough room to act as a safehouse for NPCs in need of help as well as a base of operations for fledgling Morningstar agents moving forward.

If that's still too ambitious in scale, we'd be happy to work with you on how organisational efforts should progress as right now we're wondering what the expectations are for this new chapter of Morningstar. We were under the impression that they weren't starting completely from scratch but some of the replies on plot engagement seem to suggest they are, so we just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page with IC efforts to get Morningstar going!

Thank you!

[larkers]

Hi Ellie!

As far as we know, most of the efforts to get the foundations started haven't gotten under way - we know that a number of players are having their characters start to develop networks to benefit Morningstar, but have only just begun on that path. We'd like to give it some time for this to happen, as there are some steps that need to occur to develop these foundations. While they did get a list of contacts from Gaby and El, we added that some of those contacts wouldn't work out, that there would be stipulations and they may have to start from scratch in certain areas.

re: the safehouse, that's definitely a major error on our parts! We misunderstood what you meant by HQ at the time, and relegated it to a typical safehouse in our minds. We still feel like this should be a long-term goal, getting the more minor safehouses purchased and set up for refugees and even using some of the unused locations for training.

Right now, the goal should be to focus on training the PCs and setting up the network, since Morningstar doesn't emphasize having HQs for safety and security reasons. The other thing is that the three locations that were proposed before were the three remaining businesses that could be safehouses after the desperation of the rescues in the UNA attacks. They were set up and ready to be safehouses, so any new location would need to have the underground safehouse installed after they purchase the location. That's why they were able to be set up and established while the PCs were all out of town: they were already most of the way there. Even in terms of a long-term goal, a theater may be too big for this purpose and for this reason.

We're sorry for the crossed wires, as it turns out they were on our end! Hopefully this clears some things up.

[revlon]

Hi mods!

We were under the impression that we would be able to suggest an alternative third location that was already half-prepped as a safehouse since you had mentioned not being married to the coffee shop and being open to the idea. In light of this, can we OOCly handwave that there was another location available with work already started on it with the New Budapest/Prague contractors? We were unaware they were starting from zero here (otherwise we'd have brought this to you during the initial engagement!) so we’d be happy with all manner of low-key locations: abandoned train/bus station, empty shop, rundown cafe, as we don’t want anyone’s efforts to be impeded by us not having landed on a starting location. (Please let us know what would work as a training ground as well.)

We want to be clear it isn’t our aim to skip in rebuilding or development — quite the contrary, in fact, as that’s what we find fun! Early on, we asked where the gaps were and how we could work toward filling them with recruitment of PCs and NPCS (tying into Tifa’s questions). To that end, we've been handwaving aspects of the rebuilding efforts to keep Morningstar development moving forward with the game's timeline as you'd mentioned not looking to track these, but if you'd like us to check in more regularly with details on that, please let us know.

It feels like you have a more set design in mind for things going forward — which is obviously exciting! — so we'd love to know how our PCs and their efforts fit in to that and how to best make it happen. We know Morningstar is mod-made and run, and we only want to help however we can to make it even more accessible and useful to the playerbase — so if you have direction for us, we’d be glad to hear it. (Especially since there are some PCs wanting to execute missions in the near future and we are now unsure how feasible they would be, given these clarifications.)

We realise the bigger things are long term goals and new Morningstar has only been running for about a month ICly, but we’re keen to start working toward them now and would love to collaborate with you on how to do that since we still feel unsure of what we’re working with in light of recent replies.

[isherarmor]

Fabulous, thank you!

[larkers]

Hi Ellie!

Unfortunately, we can't handwave there being another location (there were lengthy IC discussions revolving around the coffee shop) - but we're happy to assume the location they chose got suggested and scouted out around when people started to come back from New Tokyo. That would mean that it would be ready by around mid-November ICly.

Our primary focus is on getting the PCs' plots moving - setting up networks, training and getting missions (like Kylo Ren's) ready so that they can be underway. Our thought is that a lot of the foundation of things would be happening concurrently to missions getting started - making it so that characters not on missions would be focused on networking and helping scout out infrastructure for Morningstar. The main idea is to focus on the personnel they have - both among the PCs and in the network of information they might need to follow up on - before they get started with adding personnel. The idea is to make is so that they're efficiently helping people in need before they're recruiting from those numbers.

Overall, it's less that we have a solid vision in mind, and more that not a lot of IC time has passed. It's only been around two IC weeks since they've been able to act as the new Morningstar, especially thanks to being stuck in New Tokyo for a while.

[monomachy]

thank you for the links, i appreciate them! and yes, i've been in contact with jen about this. good to know i'm on the right track!

i should clarify--she'd want to be more of a freelance/private contractor who helps people pick out art for their homes, etc. as opposed to opening her own gallery. and i understand that any move towards that end is months and months in the future! thank you again for your help

[selfimage]

Thanks mods! Loki'd be pretty happy settling for being a hipster viking "hasn't sold out yet" erotica writer for now. He'll also be going under the pen name "Trixie Mistil" for your records.

If I want to pursue anything else with this I'll let you guys know!

[strove]

Hey mods!

1. Following up on a UNA question from a while ago - is there any information on where the money goes after they sign up for life? Does the money return to their families?

2. ETA: My mind blanked when I made this comment, and I forgot about another question. Riku is trying to find the source of the facility in the dreamworld. Thanks to his abilities—and some of the information you passed on to other players—he would know (I think?) that the facility and the cityscape were at least somewhat similar in their source. As such, he believes that there is a good reason to think that the facility has a source in reality, even if it's likely not ... how it was.

Essentially: he wants to look into underwater marine biology facilities. He knows that he might need to be broad about his search. I saw that you mentioned that there were some research centers outside of the cities, and I was wondering if one of these facilities would be like that. Is there any information about a facility of that sort? Can they maintain something like that? He thinks it's probable—especially after seeing the construction of New Tokyo and how it scaled from an underwater section of the city to above ground.

He'll also be looking into major scientific accidents or any information about missing scientists who may have died in these, but he's sharp and aware that this world loves censorship, so he's not expecting much of a return on this part.

Thanks!

[adsero]

Thanks for the response! Alright so, it seems like there's really no viable timeline for this, given the focus on the bar, and while it is cool to have a recreational aspect to the space that wasn't really my main interest. But it sounds like what I was going for isn't feasible right now, and I'm really looking to get Abel involved in something that he can contribute to relatively soon instead of several months down the line. So I'm going to back away from this one-- I've let Tifa know that if Rey wants to continue to pursue it that's totally fine with me, but I'm going to go in a different direction.

Thanks again!

[blyat]

I think at this time I won't pursue the modeling avenue, since you're right that he has been doing jobs that may not advertise him in the best light, but I'll keep it in mind for the future, thank you! As for Simone, I've reached out to Alex/Laura and will see where that goes. Thanks for connecting us!

For Hideki, I don't think at this time they would try to get into that room if it would lead to alerting anyone (plus they still need Hideki's sweet sweet influence power), but the map will definitely be useful to have. It may be an interesting plot element later down the line to pursue, so let's just say they take a map of the layout and don't do anything suspicious. Would this map be something virtual they store somehow using the implants? Just curious how it'd be done.

Also for my own curiosity, how would someone go about discovering if there are cameras? Let's say down the line if a more involved mission happens, would they need fancy tech to find them, or would turning off the power to the building be enough to disconnect the cameras?

[forcevisions]

Ok this helped me narrow down where I think I have an understanding gap, so bear with me as I ask some follow-up questions pls:

(1) My intention here is to have Rey expand the Morningstar network by recruiting people to the cause, effectively spreading public support. I.e., going for a more nonviolent approach to resistance by just trying to spread hope and positivity that Morningstar is helpful and good, like she's been trying to do in the dreams and by doing supply runs in the past. These things work out before, but now I'm wondering -- Is this in line with Morningstar's overall strategy? Is Gaby resistant because it's not part of how Morningstar wants to go about their rebellion on a larger scale? It would help if I knew some information about the general tone of their resistance movement and what their mid-range goals look like, as much as they would share those ideas with proven loyal agents.

(2) To that end, can you clarify what you are looking for from rebuilding Morningstar's network that ISN'T recruiting new contacts and agents? To me, these are the same task. Would you prefer I specifically picked out "here are people that are contacts provided by Gaby and El, and here's how Rey is following up with them" instead of Rey taking her own initiative with it? Because that seems like reinforcing a preexisting network instead of building one up again.

[deicider]

Hello!

With the election stuff going on, I am interested in having Sniper work with Simone Durcell doing political espionage and help with the campaign in general. I have touched base with Alex's player, Laura, so Alex can act as Sniper's "in".

My ideas are pretty lose right now. The general plan:
- Sniper (possibly also Alex depending on what we decide) will meet with Simone or Simone's people and as a good faith start they will give Durcell + co some information they have from hanging around city hall that will be useful to them. They got access to city hall via the Dream Plot, and are starting to build a clientele there.
- Sniper will present it that they want to throw in with Durcell in order to better the lot of sex workers. They will definitely make good on this angle but their actual goal is simply to get in good with Simone's people with the assumption they have ties to Mars--or will, if they win.
- When they were volunteering at the tents post-monster attack, Sniper made a point of making connections with people dissatisfied with the current government. Some of those people may already be working for Simone and can give them further legitimacy, but if not Sniper will look at looping these people in to expand their information/campaigning network.
- As for the actual espionage work-- I'm not sure how much structure you want to give versus how much I should make up! For Sniper, I think this would involve what you would expect: getting into elite parties and/or bedrooms, possibly getting info from Peggy and Ardyn (I will reach out to both once I have this initial plan hammered out). Giving out false information to the opposition. Sniper is adept at balancing their presentation to appear harmless and has a sophisticated understanding of political analysis to help them here.

Let me know if that sounds okay! I know Cain's player, Julia, is also pursuing some things in this vein and we've touched base about potential partnership opportunities.

[larkers]

Hi Tifa!

1) The issue isn't recruiting, but that they don't have the systems in place to support impoverished people. Before they start recruiting them, they need to be able to help them. It's essentially skipping a step in the development process. Our concern with your idea, besides the timing, was the primary focus on impoverished individuals - Gaby preaches helping someone before trying to prey on them (and that's why they never actively recruited the Displaced). There is no infrastructure in place to help these people, nor are the Displaced themselves accustomed to working as Morningstar.

As a note, Gaby is extremely pacifistic in her leanings and would support Rey, but part of her cautioning would be because she'd want to make sure that the people in need can get help. She doesn't want Morningstar to become predatory by trying to recruit people in bad spots in their lives - as that's the tactic behind UNA recruitment practices, as well as how some youths enter strict and regimented training programs to become world class athletes.

2) They do need to reinforce the existing network because all of those contacts will need to interact with new faces. Many of those contacts weren't aware that they were helping Morningstar, and we also wanted to leave it open for people to bring in new points of interest in the city. That means people who aren't necessarily going to join Morningstar, but may be able to help with intelligence, goods and other services. Either way, it's a changing of the guard, and the large network of intelligence that was once in place is now gone. These new people have to work to build up relationships that the old ones had, but since Morningstar is a secretive organization, they have to do it discretely. The reason why new contacts can work in this system is because they wouldn't be joining Morningstar - it would be about relationship building so they can call on favors down the line.

For the record - we think a recruitment drive is a great goal to work toward, but they may want to think up a way to encourage people to feel emboldened to join Morningstar. Right now, most of the boldness is happening on Mars, and the government is nervous. It is the right time to strike - but that's to capitalize on these sentiments to increase them. We know that you wanted Rey to do some propaganda, so that may be a fun direction to explore - making it less about the propaganda, and more about what Morningstar has accomplished and will continue to accomplish. She just needs to be cautious about not conflating the Displaced with Morningstar, as their interests aren't one and the same.

[forcevisions]

important clarification: nothing in my original comments was intended to implicate that rey would support predatory recruitment practices. she has explicitly taken steps in the past to help these specific groups with resources at morningstar's disposal (tent city stuff, etc.) in the interest of supporting them, and is now looking to see if having been helped, those people would want to pay it forward. i did not realize the resources had declined, since everything from NA morningstar was given over to fitz/peggy as far as i know, and since i think i saw a plot engagement thing about a displaced person donating a lot to morningstar's cause.

eta: i think this miscommunication came as a result of conflating impoverished with the word "disadvantaged," which is not exclusively economic at all. i did not intend for rey to be pursuing economically impoverished ppl specifically, but rather any kind of group that is disenfranchised in a general way.

i just wanna make that extremely clear before i decide what to do with the rest of this lmfao.

[larkers]

Hi Tifa!

We didn't think she was being predatory! It's something that would be on Gaby's mind when Rey approached her with this idea. Economic disparity is the main reason behind the disadvantages of Meadowlark's world, as it's the key contradiction to the otherwise glossy surface that it tries to present. We think that might be where the miscommunication happened - Meadowlark's world is one where corporate greed and influence has created the majority of the world's problems (up to and including many of the environmental issues).

Otherwise, it's a bad time to focus on recruiting new people to their numbers before New Morningstar has settled in. Everything is in flux, and even we don't know if those donations will be going to Morningstar or the Displaced (as they are separate entities). They just got into the new safehouse, they haven't started missions and they haven't started reaching out to those contacts. In addition, Morningstar has a lot of resources at their disposal, but they are waiting to see how the Displaced handle operations in New Amsterdam before offering them freely.

[revlon]

Hi again, mods!

Thank you for the clarification on these points and the NPC safehouse. We’re happy to handwave this for a small abandoned restaurant/bar in the underground with enough space for training or a nearby warehouse or natural cave in which to train agents. Does that suit?

As a note, we've been following Tifa's recent plot engagement thread on recruitment and what specifically you meant by rebuilding the network, and it seems there was a misunderstanding of where the starting line was with New Morningstar and what resources were/weren't available, what was/wasn't happening, what needed reinforcement, etc. We didn't realise reaching out to the contacts provided by El was necessary as a first step as it wasn't stated as such in our initial plot engagement, otherwise we would have highlighted this information in our OOC post. But now that that's been established, we will make this clear in a new post to the OOC comm so players with characters involved in Morningstar are aware and can move forward with personal plot ideas on that front (and create NPCs as you had encouraged).

To clear things up on our end, we wanted to outline what has been going on with the PCs so we're all on the same page wrt Morningstar efforts since it began transitioning from an NPC-led effort to PC-led:

• Outreach/relief efforts with the PCs have been underway since the IC recruitment post on Oct 6th and presumably have carried on with all PC volunteers coupled with the work Rey has been doing since the June monster attack. Further details on these efforts are outlined here on the OOC sign-up post.
• Similarly, training would have started as soon as possible since PCs had expressed interest in doing that on the Oct 6th recruitment post. Of course ~2.5 IC weeks + being interrupted by New Tokyo isn't enough time to pull together an expert strike team but as many PC recruits have combat experience and would assist Peggy and Fitz in training efforts, we've assumed things would continue to progress well on this front in prep for future missions (such as Kylo's plot).
• PCs who have signed on as contacts and agents both and have specified they would act as informants are also presumably working towards gathering intel and cultivating connections from their respective positions in New Amsterdam society, as per your note on the PCs being well-placed to get the fledgling network going. Again, we will reclarify this in a new OOC post so players are aware and can play around more with this and the list of contacts provided by El.
• Additionally, in a reply to Tifa, you’ve said “and even we don't know if those donations will be going to Morningstar or the Displaced (as they are separate entities),” so we wanted to add outright: Peggy and Fitz view NA Morningstar as a venture for Morningstar’s mission only (which they emphasised from the start ICly, but we now realise may not have been 100% clear OOCly), with any byproducts for the Displaced (such as intel re: their unique circumstances) just that — a bonus.

If you have any questions about this or how they intend to move forward, please hit us with them now! We can also give you a more detailed overview based on the new information provided across recent plot engagement replies.

We don’t expect this to result in anything as of yet (because, again, we’re not trying to skip steps and we understand not enough IC time has passed yet), but now feel the communication between us hasn’t been clear enough and want to work towards fixing that!

To that end, we also have questions:

1. What are the immediate priorities of New Morningstar, as we gathered a lot from various engagements, but want it clearly said: Is it training PCs only (not NPCs) and beginning to contact the existing network to see what is still functional?
2. What are the sentiments of the NPC agents towards the PC agents presently and how many NPC agents (not contacts) remain in the city?
3. What resources are available to them and what would require more time to gain access to? IE technology, weapons (such as things found in the raids cache or utilised in that same mission). In a reply to Tifa, you mention “Morningstar has a lot of resources at their disposal, but they are waiting to see how the Displaced handle operations in New Amsterdam before offering them freely.” How does this apply to NA Morningstar? Are they in a probationary period? Are Peggy and Fitz aware of any restrictions, ICly?
3b. If so, are there hard limits on what they are allowed to do as Morningstar agents? In our initial engagement (under the resistance header), you had stated PCs could start with networking “or go big right away” so we want to be sure we know what that means.
4. Related question — is NA Morningstar viewed as a separate, PC-focused endeavour by Morningstar at large rather than integrating with the whole? We thought they would be working with any remaining NPC agents, and we’re very keen for that, so just clarifying here.

We know you've stated you don't have a solid vision in mind, but coming up against hard no’s here and answers for what the PC Morningstar should have been doing from the start when we didn’t know that was what was needed or expected has given us a different impression. We are so, so keen for this plot and all the great prompts you’ve given us to play with, but we do feel we weren’t explicitly told what was necessary to move forward as listed in this engagement and Tifa’s, so we’re asking now to mitigate any similar misunderstandings forward — especially since both our characters are spearheading these efforts and would have presumably known all of this from the beginning as well.

We know this is a lot but given that we were all working with different ideas of what New Morningstar is, we want to make sure everything is hashed out now before any plots acting on previous assumptions get moving. We’re eager for everyone to party on and to make your job as mods as easy as possible with getting this info out in the open so any and all insight and elaboration is great. Thank you!

[ofmyth]

!!! Thanks mods, this sounds great!

I'll take you up on the offer to have the gym connected to the fighing rings. Would people who aren't involved in that still be able to access it? Thor would want people he knows to be able to use it too.

[saviorexe]

Hello mods! I have a few questions pertaining to all of my characters.

1. For V, I was wondering how his arrangement with Riko will work from a logistical standpoint? As I understand that he’s going to fulfill an informant role, I was wondering if instances of exchanging information would require threading out or handwaving? And if we needed to coordinate just what kind of information V would be sharing about the Displaced and what he’s learned from Gaby? Basically, I don’t want to step on any toes and have him say something that will compromise too much of the game, or shift things in the wrong direction! So maybe an overall idea of what’s expected of him might be helpful to know!

2. Also, V needs to start looking for a job, and I was wondering if there’s still any need for voice work in the city? Anything from narrating commercials, being on a podcast, reading audiobooks, recording lines for announcements, being the voice for a random NPC in a video game, etc etc? Is this something he’d be able to pursue if he did the research on how to get started, and moved forward from there? Basically just how viable is this job for a newcomer to New Amsterdam?

3. For Markus, I’d like to follow up on the art auction inquiry now that events how settled down and everyone’s back in New Amsterdam. (Original plot engagement thread for it located waaaay back here.) Peggy and Markus will definitely attend one, once they have their invites figuratively in-hand. And while they will be out of their socioeconomic depth, their priorities will be to simply leave a good impression with the company they’re in — once they’ve realized that the investment in the shrines don’t run very deep, beyond a passing interest for the elite.

To accomplish this, they will be very fashionably dressed (both have an eye for it) and know how to conduct themselves even under scrutiny. They will both rely heavily on their personal experiences from the timelines they hail from to exude a sense of expertise in whatever subject they choose to talk about. (And it will be subjects that they pointedly choose to start, not wanting to stumble into something they’re ignorant about.) This includes art, literature, music, history — mostly relating to the 20th/21st century and how its influence is seen today. Basically, they’re here to impress in idle conversation by leaning heavily on what they know, striking up intellectual conversation focused solely on this alone.

That being said, would they leave a good impression, maybe get the attention of notable NPCs? They won’t approach Maeda herself, but they’re not beyond making their names known. Secondly, would they hear any gossip about current events, especially relating to the current atmosphere of the upcoming elections? They’re here to snoop and dig up dirt if they can… but with class.

4. And finally, for Ardyn, what information would he be able to unearth about the elections and the candidates? Would his job allow for a different perspective in regards to how it might play out, who is backing whom, and if there are rumors flying around among other politicians that he would pick up on?

Thanks!

[larkers]

Hello again, Ellie!

We want to emphasize that is not so much about a specific set of steps we'd like to see so much as an issue of time. As you noted, IC recruitment kicked into gear October 6th. In game, it is now very early in November – and the PCs spent a great deal of time in New Tokyo. As things stand right now, it's still very early into New Morningstar's development, and we want to see the infrastructure more developed before moving forward. It is up to the players to decide what to focus on playing with; we don't want to give the impression that you have to play out things that might be tedious. However, stabilizing the New Amsterdam branch of Morningstar is not going to happen overnight.

In addition, both with your plot regarding the headquarters and Tifa's recruitment plot with Rey, we never gave hard nos. Morningstar themselves would have been reluctant to purchase a theater and Gaby is reluctant to support Rey in recruiting at this early stage. We were trying to emphasize that it was more a matter of "not right now."

Otherwise – many of our remarks to Tifa referred to Tifa's plots for Rey, and were not meant to be generalized to the entire PC Morningstar endeavor.

1. Training PCs and and making contact with the NPCs from the file EL provided is a good place to start, but as noted above, please feel free to focus on playing out what is more fun! Again, we do not want to give the impression you need to play out everything, and we feel that you've been doing a great job so far. Otherwise - we want to re-emphasize time, and we don't want anyone to feel as if they need to hold back. We believe that missions – like Kylo Ren's – would be happening concurrently. Our main concern is expanding to anything too big at this point. For instance, with the recruiting efforts, we said that increased warmth toward Morningstar would "open up the opportunity for native/NPC recruitment within New Amsterdam once the new chapter is up and running." The emphasis is ours!

2. We've covered most of this information in this reply under the Information subheader, but to reiterate and expand:

They will be able to reach out to the contacts who are underground near New Amsterdam. Their location is tentative, and Peggy and Fitz won't be able to interact with them face to face. This is for their safety - as well as Peggy and Fitz's, as it could compromise the Displaced's safety, as well. Most of these contacts are lab techs for Pulsar and Giles Bell who weren't called on as often for assistance, but they can fill in the gaps for any scientific know-how that the PCs won't be able to fill. Reaching out to them will be difficult - and it'll only be possible through El. Basically, it'll be a game of telephone. They stuck around because they want to help - and some of them want to know what the Displaced even are, so there's some intellectual curiosity at play. Some of these agents will have liaised with some of the contacts from the file that El will provide - though we'll leave it up to you as to whether or not this is useful or could cause problems! These agents are here to help the PCs! So, this can be called upon whenever!

These are the few remaining agents who stayed on after the UNA attacks, as noted here. We're sorry if we confused things with "contacts" and "agents" being used interchangeably there.

3. As we saw with the previous raid event, some members of Morningstar are more militant than others. Morningstar does have a great deal of weaponry and trained personnel, but that's present in other megacities with the other chapters. Peggy and Fitz would not be aware of any hard restrictions – there are none, officially – but they will be aware of the fact that they will need to earn the trust of the other Morningstar chapters before NA Morningstar can work more closely with them. As we noted in Tifa's response, Morningstar is not centralized and as such their vetting process with the PC Morningstar is "wait and see".

In terms of resources, they have the masks and guns available to them, but not the cache. The reason for the cache not being available at this time is because no one has approached us OOCly to explore what these weapons can do. We have a plot in mind for these, so we've been hoping someone would come to us about them! They are highly experimental and dangerous weapons, and wouldn't be handed over without a period of exploration.

Otherwise, they're only in a "probationary period" as Gaby has expressed to Fitz and Peggy: the Displaced have to show their dedication to the cause, as well as their willingness to set things up. They know things were left in poor shape after New Amsterdam's agents had to be evacuated and the city went dark, separated from the rest of the world.

3b. For "going big" we meant more along the lines of the PCs throwing caution to the wind and going far more aggressive and bolder. This remark was meant more as an OOC sentiment on our parts, rather than some implicit direction or order given from the Morningstar higher ups. It is good to keep in mind that anything the PCs do will have IC consequences, but we always want these to be fun to play with OOCly. Depending on execution, they may get support from Morningstar for whatever they attempt – or they may not! A lot of it depends, and we try to keep things more fluid.

Overall, there are no restrictions on what the PCs can do. If they want to start recruiting, they can! Rey went through Gaby, who's been established as being more conservative in her actions, methods and beliefs. Gaby will always preach slow burn – that is in no way indicative of what Morningstar as a whole believes. There's a reason why Gaby has been left in the dark on not one but two aggressive Morningstar missions – and there is a lot of room to believe that she's been left out of even more than just those two.

A key part of Meadowlark is that we leave all options open. There may be some barriers that come into play – IE Morningstar not purchasing a theater because it's too early in the process and much too large of a venture – for natural IC reasons, but we never want to shut the door on anything. We'll let players know if their venture is feasible or successful, but we never want to stop anything in its tracks. We want to encourage characters to make decisions that may be "incorrect" – especially as it might help their IC arc moving forward!

4. To reiterate what we said in our initial Morningstar plan follow up:

Most of the cooler sentiments toward the PCs was because they were blamed for the major upheaval in New Amsterdam - and recent information pointing elsewhere has definitely changed things. While each chapter of Morningstar in each megacity largely works independently, they can reach out and help one another with minor crises. In Peggy and Fitz's cases, they'll need to go through El for those occasions. They'll be encouraged to set up a network that covers all of these occasions in New Amsterdam proper. Emphasis added here.

Thus, Morningstar isn't centralized to begin with, so there's not really the expectation that the other Morningstar chapters will work closely with PC Morningstar outside of emergencies. That is something that PC Morningstar will have to build up to. Right now, other Morningstar chapters are simply monitoring the situation and going about their own business as normal.

In conclusion, we really do want to stress that we are merely trying to monitor things timewise, and ensure that they happen at a more realistic pace. It was never our intention to blindside you with our expectations. And even though a lot of OOC time has passed since we originally proposed that Fitz and Peggy take over Morningstar operations to jumpstart them again, actual movement ICly was stalled because of the dream plot and the holdover in New Tokyo. We understand that these circumstances may be frustrating to you as players, but please understand we are monitoring things while keeping the whole world of the game in mind, and we believe there are plenty of things currently available to play with!

We understand that you may have felt thrown for a loop here, we do recommend reviewing previous correspondences with us if you're feeling unsure. We are always happy to answer questions but we feel that the combined conversations – our thread with Tifa, as well as our communication with you – may have led you to believe that we were being far harsher with our expectations than we ever intended. Occasionally, our players will meet with friction on plot, and we need to be able to address those situations when needed. Friction doesn't mean that we're shutting down an avenue, only that it may take more time for that path to be pursued.

[retravel]

Hi mods! Ellie and Laura here again (also adding that I helped with all the above replies xx)

Thank you again for more clarity and for attempting to understand our position, as players who only see a smidge of what you have before you. We appreciate the further detail on Gaby’s role in this, the state of missions, and for taking the time to try to and unpick some of the steps to take for the New Morningstar org.

Apologies if it seemed like we hadn't read or reviewed your replies: We can assure you we had our threads with you open for this conversation, and have been referring back repeatedly for each topic. Any repetition in questions was because it seemed like the answers had changed, so we're glad to hear the initial reply is still the core document, so to speak. We're grateful for clarificationall fronts, and, again, we recognise not enough IC time has passed. We mentioned the work in progress on the IC end to ensure we're on the same page, not to ask for a fast pass (and we're sorry if that wasn't clear). We feel we have solid grasp of how plotting works in this game (and enjoy it!), and we completely understand that not all roads lead to immediate wins — or any win at all. We're alright with what you call "friction" as for us, asking questions about how or why something is unfeasible now or later and following up on anything you've given us is just a means of seeking a new way of phrasing or further details. To that end, your words explaining that neither us nor Tifa's efforts are impossible is useful, but we still have questions. SO THANKS WE PROMISE WE'RE STILL KEEN & SORRY WE KEEP GOING LONG MODS

Quickly, just because I believe you missed this out of your reply: We’re happy to handwave the NPC safehouse for a small abandoned restaurant/bar in the underground with enough space for training or a nearby warehouse or natural cave in which to train agents. Does that suit? We really want this to be up and running for everyone as soon as possible, so please do let us know if the mid-November timeline is feasible for any basic location.

Now, this ties into all of our previous correspondence as useful jumping off point, what do you mean by they can "open up the opportunity for native/NPC recruitment within New Amsterdam once the new chapter is up and running"?

With up and running, Ellie and I thought you meant once the efforts were well underway, but this does seem to suggest we're skipping steps in the process, and you want the new Morningstar to be at a certain stage or have a specific window of IC time in mind for things to stablise before recruitment (or something like a potential HQ — not the theatre, we understand you don't think the space suits at any size, and we have discarded it accordingly — but a future tbd space). “Up and running” could just be functioning as we thought, or it could mean “fully organised” so we're checking in again to be sure we're on the right track:

Do you mean the safehouse? Do you mean the re-ignited contacts and agents?

Do you mean the handwaved efforts and, therefore, the IC time you've emphasised throughout this reply?

In the event of the latter, do you mean we need to wait an IC month or 2? 3 months? 6? We realise that over here in reality, it would take this long or much, much longer to accomplish, but with the calendar as you’ve set it, that can push us to six months or more on this (putting us at up to a year on this plot), and that is something we will admit to finding frustrating. As someone who has been in game for a year and makes every effort to keep track of the calendar and realistic developments alongside it, it's near impossible to do on the truncated timescale you've created. Fortunately, our pretend fun times and super-special genius secret agent sci-fi and fantasy etc PC knowledge base means there's some fluidity on what's realistic, so any clarity you can provide on the timescale here would be of great use as a measuring stick for us moving forward.

Even though we perceive the IC timeline as unwieldy, we're still bloody game for anything and keen on this plot in all its forms — so please don't take that consideration/criticism of an aspect of plotting I find problematic for this endeavor as a lack of enthusiasm for the whole of it, regardless of your answer.

Again, to be clear, we do not want to skip the rebuild stage or push for unrealistic IC developments, but we do want to know where we stand currently (which you've helped clarify already; thank you) and now how to get from point A to point B (as well as how long that trip takes in IC and real-time).

Thanks for the help!

[larkers]

Hi Laura and Ellie!

Let's go with an abandoned bar/VR arcade in the underground part of the city. It's not necessarily one that gives access to the system of caves, but they wouldn't have to go quite as far to get to them. This location shut down in September 2510 after the earthquake and subsequent power outage damaged its systems beyond repair.

As for your other questions, we can hopefully provide some clarification:

Our goal for Morningstar is for it to be an organization for churning out CR opportunities. We want players to be able to facilitate plots for their characters by using Morningstar as a stepping stone. No matter what, we want people to be able to use Morningstar as an outlet to dig into things that they find interesting. Our primary concern at this time is giving characters the opportunity to rebuild things from the ground up, knowing that they have a difficult task ahead – especially when the world itself is in shambles and (as our premise promises) will continue to be that way.

Part of why we launched the UNA attacks is because we realized that Morningstar was an aspect of the game that needed retooling. It wasn't providing the CR opportunities that we hoped for, and we wanted to remove the barrier between characters joining and going on larger missions. Ergo, our primary focus is on getting the PCs doing things with other PCs. Before thinking of expanding, we want to allow plenty of time for PCs to focus on hitting the ground to do things among themselves. That's where we're afraid that some of the Morningstar expectations and our expectations got conflated – we're primarily concerned with PCs doing things with Morningstar and people bringing plots to us that we can facilitate, and very few Morningstar-related plots have come our way since the new iteration has gotten off the ground. We want to re-emphasize that no one has to do things that aren't fun to RP, because what's the point? Not a lot of IC time has passed for characters to do anything, and that's also reflected in the fact that many plots are just taking shape on this front. As for the contacts, we want them to be a means of facilitating plots and information between the PCs – not unlike how Bobbi and Marcos manipulated people to get information about the nurse's corpse. The network of NPCs is meant to be a medium of opportunity. Again, we know you and Ellie are excited to get things underway, but several other characters have expressed interest in Morningstar (not to mention we are getting a large batch of PCs this round) and we want to allow time for everyone to get a feel for using Morningstar as a tool for CR opportunities.

We don't have a hard length of time in mind, but we do think there is a happy medium between less than one IC month and half an IC year. This is because we also need to be flexible. Sometimes we notice things aren't working out, so we try to find and tailor a way to change that. We're definitely not going to force anyone into a rebuilding period of a year OOC, but we do want the rebuilding process to be a challenge for the characters that will be fun to RP out.

We want that challenge to remain for a while, purely because we think that's interesting and it will allow more opportunities for characters to engage with the setting and establish themselves in the world. Think of it like taking out the wise old man at the beginning of a show's arc because he has too much information – only the PC Morningstar effort is fortunate in that they're both well-trained and have an expert hacker in El. The neat thing is that the characters could go above and beyond in their efforts! They could overcome the challenge in an efficient way, or even decide that rebuilding the same framework isn't as important as the actions they need to take.

Overall, we're not monitoring everything you're doing, merely keeping in mind certain factors of time when we approach certain plots. We want people to feel free to bring plots to us – that's what Morningstar is for! The two plots brought into these discussions didn't work with the "early stages" framework, especially given Gaby's personal involvement. That is in no way a declaration about all plots with Morningstar at the helm! They were very specific examples. Please feel free to have anyone come to us with missions, and we'll be happy to work with them! Nothing needs to slow down in the least – on the contrary, we want to help these get moving, because we want people to RP these fun things, and we believe there are plenty of things available for play right now for everyone.

As an additional note, we will be stepping away from this thread for a week while we process apps and finalize the new arrival log and we ask that you do the same. If you still have questions after that time, feel free to reply again. And definitely feel free to submit plots in the meantime!

[retravel]

Hey mods,

Off the back of Sniper and Fitz doing some IC brainstorming, I'm gently resurrecting this old thread to check if Leigh and I throwing an IC discussion on the network re: the Morningstar weapons cache is a valid approach for coming up with a group plan to safely suss out the content of the neat-o gadgets and gizmos?

Thanks!