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

[rehandle]

Hey gang!

So whoever shows up at the bar Stephen will offer a drink and invite into the office to spin some tale about being on the lookout for influencers to collaborate with to boost his mentalist side business. He'll explain that alongside other avenues he's been contemplating stepping into the club scene for promo videos and cooltalk content and Hideki's got a sizeable enough group of friends that observing him on a night out seemed a decent way to get eyes on a few people at the same time - he'll admit that since running his own bar he's become a little more conscious of people's behaviour under the influence and wanted to get a sense of whether or not Hideki and his pals were people he could do business with without it reflecting badly on him later. Difficult to claim you care about your staff and the public if you're going to try to turn a profit elsewhere by collaborating with somebody without any respect for other people on a night out! He'll have a fairly extensive list of notes he's taken about potential collaborators that expand beyond just Hideki including new starters, middle and heavy weight cooltalkers, which he'll be happy to share.

He'll take the length of the conversation to do some snooping in this staff member's mind for anything worth overhearing too. Primarily intending to listen in on any thoughts about incoming or outgoing messages, freshly written files and considerations of who they'll be sent to, looking for any sense of staff structure or hierarchy and any names of who he's being reported on to, and whether this staff member themselves is anyone of significance to Maeda. Fortunately he always layers up at work to avoid any glowing.

If you guys have any suggestions on where to chase the info he got from the guard (would said guard have known the identities of any of her loyal guards?) and any info Stephen might get from this most recent interaction, that would be great! We're looking for ways to wrap this up sooner rather than later (this is on me for taking a month off haha) so if it's going to take a while to wind down the subtler roads I'll hand over to Jason's ready-lit fuse.

[kill7]

i'm not sure if this fits here, but i was given the idea of having qi work at a high-class salon in order to eavesdrop on conversations and gather information for the displaced.

i'd like to know if that would be ok! i'd put it in the locations as well. what kind of information i could have him pass around is up to the mod team!

... and hopefully he doesn't get fired.

[larkers]

Hey Raina!

Hyped by the fight itself, Hideki will be happy to bring back his friends. Not that night, but his mom is due to be out of town soon, so he'll send them a message when it's go time!

[larkers]

Hi Brandon!

There's no way that they would be able to get into a scuffle with the police without being identified. In the question thread linked in the previous comment (see the comment here) where PCs were interfering with child abductions, we outlined to both the players that they would need Morningstar resources to ensure that they weren't identified. Morningstar will be hesitant to give both Tim and Klaus resources when they already have an established presence in New Beijing. That isn't to say that they'll refuse to help, instead both Tim and Klaus will need to present a solid plan to get the scrambler masks to ensure that they're not identified by the police on sight. We're aware that they're reaching out to Marcos, but they'll need to do the legwork.

The scrambler masks are worn to keep the police and UNA from identifying someone by scanning their neural implant. This tech is only in Morningstar's hands and can be distributed through agreements.

[larkers]

Hi Dee! They sure would be. Let us know if there are any questions!

[larkers]

Hi Gee!

While Maeda's guard isn't going to believe him in the least - and Stephen will know this before the conversation ends! - there will be a chance to get some juicy information. He'll know who some of the loyal guards are, how they're typically chosen by Maeda, and what someone can do to get in there. The guard is a better source of shifts, but there's the sense that anyone outside of the inner circle is expendable.

We're assuming that Stephen wouldn't be able to simultaneously push the BS he's spinning while also prying into the guard's mind, by the way!

That said, Stephen will likely come away with two impressions:

1. That he's likely going to be in trouble if Maeda isn't put in check quickly, if only because he's tested his luck one too many times. That means that people close to Stephen are in danger (so, his employees, his business partner, etc.).

2. That he can use those guards to get close to Maeda. They'll have to do some legwork to find them, but this is where big Jason can come in, since those guys will be known in criminal circles. She recruits guys who Know Their Shit, but also know how to be loyal - so it's similar to how people in the mob families end up going up the ranks and how loyalty is tested. From there, we'll let you guys decide how to do this, but let us know if you need more help!

[filloryfanatic]

It says they resonate and glow. Will this only be to one relic or all or multiple if they picked up multiple and different colors? Also is it permanently glowing or only occasionally? Does it brighten or get louder depending on anything? Like if Quentin was to keep it at the apartment, or if he was to bring it to the safehouse, would anything change?

[larkers]

Hi Dee! Only the special relic will glow, as we've limited it to just the one that has special abilities! Locations don't matter. We're thinking that it would only glow when one of the Displaced are close by, so if he leaves it somewhere, it wouldn't do anything. Of course, let us know if that doesn't work for you, as this is something we applied after the event was done to help players out!

[overrate]

ALRIGHT. He will pass off THAT knowledge. But will they make it in?

And once in, is it possible for Mason to misuse his powers of "getting lost looking for the bathroom" to identify where that room is? and what security measures are being taken?

Could he get away with getting subtle pictures of the place to return to Jason?

[filloryfanatic]

If he picked up a few things, should I then pick one of the things to be special? I was thinking maybe the crucifix because he was in New Rio and you know *waves at Jesus statue*

If he carried it around with him then as a Displaced it would resonate and glow? And is that the extent of what it's doing for right now?

[larkers]

Yep, that's fine! Whatever you'd like. Hell, it could even be the thing you'd least expect, as long as it isn't a Person Part. (So, no teeth.)

And yes, that's what it would do! Is that a relic glowing in your pocket or are you happy to see [the sandwich guy Q goes to]?

[dragonwarder]

I CANNOT FIND WHERE I PREVIOUSLY ASKED THIS QUESTION SO I'M JUST gonna come back here and do it this way since it has been a few months.

Knowing that consuming golden-eyed animal meat results in anger sickness and seeing as the animals are roaming with increasing frequency, Daenerys would be interested in sharing this information (and the samples she has been holding onto from the previous research facility plot) with Aramis and their scientist friends.

If feasible, she'd also attempt to make a charisma roll and use this as leverage for a possible observation internship now that she's a more familiar face.

Also, I should have asked this WAY sooner, but is it immediately obvious who is funding all of this research? Because that's something Dany would want/would have wanted to look into.

[deadthenred]

HELLO MODS

— Bucky had a conversation with Other Bucky and discovered Other Bucky still has old Winter Soldier mental killswitches implanted into his brain.

— He decided to try to help Other Bucky fix this!! In his own canon this was accomplished with the help of Tony Stark and a bullshit comic book mind machine. In Meadowlark he has Tony Stark & Daisy Johnson to help possibly build and/or modify such a contraption.

— Would such a thing even be possible? Because comic books are very silly I'm flexible in all of the actual tech aspects but I'd like to operate within the setting lore on specifics. Is there anything like this that already exists that could be stolen and/or reprogrammed or would this need to be a strictly DIY project?

— If someone with a lot of experience sneaking around were to look into mental conditioning/psychotechnics on the black market, where would that thread lead? How easy/difficult is this stuff to find out?

[larkers]

Hey JB!

Qi can absolutely do that. He'll have to work his way up, though. Most higher-end salons will require that new hires have both a robust portfolio and an established, loyal client base that will bolster the salon's sales. Qi's best bet is to start off at a smaller salon and study current hair trends. Who knows, he might even get some good info from the less wealthy clients as he gains their trust.

[larkers]

Hey Raina,

You're free to assume that Mason, as well as a handful of Hideki's friends, made it to his house after the fight for drinks while his mother was out of town. He will be very specific about this!

Upon entering the Maeda estate, there will be armed guards posted at the doors. They won't be keen on speaking and will ensure that the group entering knows they're being watched. There will be cameras in most places, so Mason will have to make his detour in the Maeda household believable. The locked room – to specify, this is a neural implant lock – is the master suite shared by Aoi and her husband. Since neither of them trust Hideki, the room will be locked when Mason passes it!

Pictures are fine, but keep the above in mind! He's going to have to act natural.

[larkers]

Hi Kay!

Considering the fact that Daenerys is coming in with knowledge and information/samples to share, Aramis would be willing to vouch for her and get her the internship! So you can assume that starts now (though the upcoming event is clearly going to serve as a distraction for a while!).

As for the funding question, it won't be immediately obvious who, but the way that the researchers function makes it seem like it's a smaller funding group rather than a huge corporation calling the shots. There's not much of a corporate culture around it, and no big names are getting dropped.

Once she's settled into the internship, depending on how she plays her cards, she might start to learn more details. Feel free to use the event to try and push this angle as well if you want, as all New Amsterdam NPCs will be in the simulation as well.

[kill7]

i will have him start at a small hair salon then! thank you mods!

[realists]

hello mod friends, i have a couple questions!

1. would jyn know anything in regards to this email snippet, whether it be what experiments they are doing toward jupiter/her moons or who in the division might have been the recipient of said email/if they have made any changes to what they're looking for out of experiments since then.

2. if jyn brought in some of the zerzuran plants to use in experiments to see if they help along terraforming activities (aerating the poor soil, increasing oxygen/nitrogen in the atmosphere, if they can survive the radiation), would there be a noticeable difference? #sciencestuff

[larkers]

Hi Emma!

For clarification purposes, can you clarify what you mean by Zerzuran plants? Do you mean that she brought plants from Zerzura or the plants growing rapidly in New Amsterdam?

[realists]

the plants growing rapidly! (she doesn't call them zerzuran plants icly, that was my differentiation)

[larkers]

Thanks! 😊

[overrate]

I think he can manage about 85% natural. In that he might linger a little long at some doors, but play it off as naturally as possible with being "lost."

[realists]

guess who's back!

1. i know jovavich is adopted and a wunderkind, is anything known about her birth family or are adoption records sealed away?

2. jack has asked jyn to look at his align implant. jyn has been hacking this world's systems for roughly six months now and has the added bonus of the new messages to help her navigate the code. specifically, they are looking for:

➙ how the programming actually works (she will contract cassian "i reprogrammed a droid when i was 14 for fun" if she cannot parse the programming herself)
➙ what the programming is doing to the soldiers

3. while thinking of ways to spread the word to the people they help, jyn and marcos thought maybe something like a qr code that could be stamped/painted/drawn on items (the inside lid of mason jars full of food, in the pattern of a tea towel wrapped around bread, etc) that could connect them to an encrypted website with information about morningstar via a coded passphrase, obviously a lot of kinks to work out, but is something like a qr code possible?

4. jyn is going to buy space on a billboard that says "HEY BALL, CALL ME." with a bird and her contact name... whether it works or not, it's happening. in the financial district, where the rich people congregate. she will be doing this before the simulation so obv if it is fruitful nothing will happen until after the end, but i wanted to remember to put it out there. yo, as they say, lo.

5. will searching for swiftlet / swiftlet device get her and cassian anything other than a bird? would searching "swiftlet + riverstone" or giles bell or any of the big companies yield a result?

xoxo

[filloryfanatic]

Hi mods just a quick check in, Helena gave Quentin a picture of the hieroglyphs from New Cairo's ruins. That's one of the languages he has some knowledge of, so was there anything written there that he'd be able to translate?

[larkers]

Hi Alex!

It would be possible, but they might have to adjust to this world's technology (and maybe even work out a way to interface with MCU!Bucky's neural implant). None of this is impossible, but would take time and effort. Otherwise, we're cool with them utilizing Marvel Comics technology, and trying to adapt it to this world. In many ways, Marvel's tech is beyond Meadowlark's, while in others it may be a bit behind. We're playing fast and loose with this since it's all fake science.

That said, there isn't anything like that on the Black Market. This is proprietary technology that is absolutely under the UNA's control. The closest that Bucky would be able to find would be the manipulation of the neural implant for VR simulations and how that's pulled off, and that may grant some insight into how to help his Bucky counterpart. The event can also be used to help inspire this, since everyone involved will have more of an idea of how far the neural implant can be pushed to manipulate and alter someone's mind.