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]

Hey Jay!

That covers everything! Thanks! Let us know if there's anything else that you had in mind (and sorry for the delay on this!).

[personalwar]

The next question Jack would probably ask would be in regards to Global Spiral, as he at least has that name to go off of when it comes to the Gates kidnapping incident. He'd want to know if this guy is aware of the group, if he knows who usually hires them (does Riverstone?) or what kinds of jobs they generally do, etc. etc.

If the contact wanted to know why he was asking all this, Jack would explain that the Displaced as a group had some interaction with Global Spiral, but wouldn't really want to say more than that, citing that it wasn't his place to speak for the Displaced as a whole. He would imply that he'd had a run-in with them that he wasn't too thrilled about, but wouldn't go so far as to allude to kidnapping or anything like that.

[personalwar]

Hi again, fellow mods!

As discussed ICly with Cassius over yonder, Jack is trying to arrange for him and Dean to travel to the facility that was the setting for the 12th arrival log to see if they can dig up any more information about the monsters, find samples, or learn anything else that might have been overlooked during the first trip. Especially now that they've had additional run-ins with monsters thanks to the recent event, the hope is that they'll have more insight into what the heck was going on there.

If you could lay out how this would play out, that would be great, and we'll see about maybe threading out their field trip as well. If you need more information about what their approach would be once they get inside, I can check in with Em and get back to you, but a general idea of what state the building is in and what they may or may not find there (are they going to get swarmed by a horde of experimental monsters?) would be great!

[evocation]

OKAY SO, here are Kyna’s theories, and the mindset she’ll be working from:

Essentially, Kyna’s assumption here is that there’s more truth to these stories than fiction, and that while they may have been embellished over the centuries or millennia, that these folk heroes really did have supernatural powers and were chosen by something.

Since she’s come around to the god theory, that’s what she’ll be shifting her focus to. The god-touched notion feels like an extension of the idea of divinely chosen heroes that are pretty ubiquitous in myth, and she’s looking for proof that those stories are real in this world. She assumes (or desperately hopes) that not every single god from every single culture actually exists here, so what she’s trying to do is narrow down what gods might be real, or where the origin of them might be.

For example, most cultures have gods of death, or goddesses of fertility. Her theory is that here, maybe humanity had some kind of interaction with, say, a divine force or some sort of power that caused death that then developed into multiple deities depending on the culture. She’s assuming that the Displaced have been chosen by a force like this in the same way Odysseus was chosen by Athena or whatever.

But! Kyna does have a lot of familiarity with the history of witchcraft, so if anything points her in that direction, she’ll seize on it pretty immediately. Medieval history and belief is less her jam, and that will be something she’ll probably have to tag team with someone. However, because a lot of this is still pretty broad, and because she talked about this a bit with Sam, she thinks her best bet is focusing on getting a look at some of those manuscripts and primary sources first, and then working from there.

So, for specific questions:

1. Are there any public records of where those pieces/artifacts might have ended up? I’m thinking about the way some big auction houses will announce the price that something sold for and who bought it, especially if it's someone well known. There are times that buyers don’t stay anonymous, or there are some private collectors that become well-known for their collections. Would she be able to find mentions of anyone like that, or any big sales that might point her in the right direction, especially collectors with a specific interest in the time periods the gate ruins are from? 


2. Kyna will find the idea of pagan/cult sites really interesting, too. Are there any that still exist today beyond the gate ruins, specifically ones that might have been incorporated into the modern megacities or that are still in use, specifically in cities like New Amsterdam or New Oslo? New Beijing has some reclaimed landmarks too, but do any of those have any historical religious significance specifically?

[rehandle]

Howdy mods!

Some Laura-focused questions -

1. Will she have or be able to regain access to her money from the first time around?

She used to be fairly well-off thanks to gang involvement, she ran general admin as part of Jason's Gang Team if I remember right. I could actually happily go in either direction - either having all the money or at least enough so she can survive on her own for a while without help from Morningstar, or having little to no money and needing to scrounge around to make some. The latter would end in her using powers in the fighting rings to rig matches in her favour so if it's a no on the money could you also let me know whether she'd be able to go undetected for power use or not now that the city is so switched on to the Displaced? (... actually can I have an answer to that anyways please for potential future reference, lmk if you need some more info on exactly what she'd be doing.)

2. Can I assume that old world-native friends and acquaintances (or people who saw her in action any of the times she subtly powers-rigged some ring fights before) from the fighting rings and the gangs would still recognise her if she found her way to the fights or hunted down old connections? Just to check if she'll still have some kind of social foothold or is starting completely fresh




And a non-Laura related question! this won't be relevant until January now but might be useful to help jump start further IC discussion and planning in advance of the event whipping them off into an AU so -

Is the alley with the drop offs directly next to Red Wings? If so, and they set up a security camera out there connected to the Red Wings CCTV network, would the mysterious drop off powers that be still be able to rig and wipe it or will the Red Wings (😏) be able to use it as a drop off alert or to record footage of the drop off similar to how to Morningstar cam picked up the car delivery that one time?

Also just noting here that I'm interested in getting Stephen involved with a delivery intercept in any capacity so I'll be back to this in the future when I know who else wants to play - if you already know of anybody already working on this can you let me know so I can hit them up to chat about it some more? I did a cursory glance of the comments here but didn't spot anything

[evasives]

1. cassian will not be signing up, but trace gave me the go ahead to say marcos would! in the interim cassian will be casually befriending any nurses or staff via marcos. i'm gonna go ahead and add a person or two to his network from this!

1a. he will also just look up the general layout of the cyberkinetics structure at giles bell and use this as a stepping stone to seek out staff involved, looking for people who might seem more likely to talk.

how big is the giles bell cyberkinetics department? is there a director in charge? who do they currently have partnerships with, whether research or business?*
*i don't want you to do unnecessary work so lets just say cassian would only be looking for significant or familiar names, whether it's individuals or organizations.

1b. as for lynch, how long was he working for giles bell? are any of the staff he brought with him to the governorship notably connected to giles bell too?

4. IN! TER! EST! ING! is it like they never existed, or more just they literally disappeared after a certain point?

[larkers]

His merc is familiar with Global Spiral! Like the other mercenary groups, they're pretty well known in these circles. However, he hasn't heard of Global Spiral having any connection to Riverstone. From what he knows, Global Spiral tends to work with a corporation called Scherer Corp. He doesn't seem to have any real idea what that corporation does, though.

Jack might remember that a Morningstar agent named Gavin dug quite a bit into the mercenaries, and could be a good back up source as he pieces this together. Gaby would be a great go between for this, as she's publicly stated that she knows him!

[larkers]

Hey Court,

Cassius will send a long-range traveling vehicle (with a driver) to pick them up early in the morning (think the time people get up for fishing, like 4 a.m). The driver will take them about a mile away from the facility with a brief stop on the main road between New Amsterdam and the next city, and then they'll have to walk the rest of the way. Likewise, another driver will be picking them up around 10 p.m., and they'll arrive back in New Amsterdam around 12 a.m.

The facility is in poor shape, the six foot building nearly falling apart at this point, completely abandoned and beginning to be swallowed by nature. Nothing much has changed too drastically since the Displaced have been there last, aside from the horrible smell of rotting flesh! As a note, the full explanation of the facility is here. The monster carcasses have mostly disintegrated, and are scattered as fleshless skeletons around the facility. The equipment is still present, but in a very, very poor state. Most of it is close to unrecognizable. There's no longer anything living at the facility, aside from some local wildlife, which scatters when either Dean or Jack get too close.

Let us know if they'd take anything, or if they're looking for something specific! Otherwise, it'll be creepy silence while waiting for a possible jumpscare that will never come!

[larkers]

Hey Jenny,

Just as a big head's up before we get started, we've solidified some of our lore about this since you first wrote in, so we apologize for anything that seems inconsistent. We'll be happy to work with you on this!

1. First off, she'll want to date the gates. For your reference:

Cairo - Ancient Egypt
Oslo - Probably around 1000 to 1200
Everest - Sometime after 1000, but before the Rongbuk Monastery was established there in 1902.
Rio - Definitely 17th century.

As an additional reference, a part of William's hacking in Antarctica unearthed some stuff that would be of interest to Kyna. He released this before he disappeared. The link to that is here.

Looking into these, she'll definitely have the most luck getting things that would relate to Rio. That's after more printing started occurring. The thing is, these manuscripts would likely not be from the Brazilian region, instead being from Portugal because of the whole colonialism thing.

She'll be able to find some collectors who do have manuscripts from 17th century Portugal. She may also want to look into the late medieval Books of Hours to see if she can find anything, as these would be privately commissioned devotional manuals. The big thing about what's in Brazil is that it shows people with status were buying into that religion, so it didn't necessarily need to be an offshoot in theological understanding.

In short: the answer is yes! She'll want to look for imagery that's less associated with sacred geometry and more with the colors and iconography in the New Rio gate.

2. The big two beyond the gates are obviously New Amsterdam (where they had to complete the gates ritual) and New Beijing (where former Beijing monuments make up a part of the city). As established in the simulation event, these are also two of the older megacities. New Amsterdam's location isn't near any significant historical location, so it seems odd that it was chosen. We do suggest hitting up Tifa (since Yennefer has looked into this!) and drawing some obvious intentionality conclusions. We do intend for this to be straightforward: the gates were there before the megacities!

[larkers]

Hey again Tomato!

1. Sounds good!

1a. Giles Bell's cybernetics and biomedical departments are pretty massive. They work closely with Vyonation and Riverstone to ensure that their cybernetics interface perfectly with the neural implants, which Giles Bell was largely responsible for developing. It probably isn't necessary for him to track down anyone else at Giles Bell, because...

1b. Lynch has worked for Giles Bell since around his mid-20s, and he's now in his 60s, so quite a while! He was head of PR for an arm of Giles Bell called Ibis, which originally pioneered the development of replacement organs as well as the medi-units. Currently, they continue to work to advance and perfect this technology, and Lynch's high position speaks to his good reputation. Ibis does not work on cybernetics directly, although they do work with the department to ensure that their medi-units are compatible. Feel free to come up with colleagues Lynch brought along as staff from Giles Bell! He would definitely have a couple of them around him.

It's also worth noting that Silena received a plot tidbit about Lynch and Henries! This might be something Cassian wants to dig into more.

4. The scientists at the New Omsk lab died when the facility collapsed. Because they were sequestered in the lab itself, it isn't so much that they were erased from the record, but that they died and their families weren't told why. Cassian might want to reach out to Ren for further information from the documents Ren received!

[larkers]

Hey Gee,

1. She should be fine to regain her credits. She will no longer have her administrative job with the gangs, however! She's been gone too long, and the gangs themselves have undergone some restructuring (per the last calendar). Since Jason is no longer the head of the Outlaws, she'll have to find a way to explain her disappearance as well as ensure that it wouldn't happen again. It's up to you whether or not she'd stick around to appease the gang itself, or if she'd head off on her own to do her Plan B.

She most likely would not go undetected for long in the fighting rings if she used her power—let us know if you decide to go this route. More details on the specifics here would be appreciated!

2. Yes, that's fine. They will wonder where she went, though …

As for the rest:

Could you clarify the CCTV network?

Regardless of that, yes! Red Wings' security cameras should be able to capture the drop-offs. However, by the time it showed up on the security camera, it would be too late to pursue. The vans would need to be apprehended before they stopped at Red Wings! So, there would need to be some plans put into motion to pursue the routes there.

As far as those who are interested goes: Feel free to make an OOC post that's time-appropriate for all of those that may be interested in pursuing this route. After you write it up (with whoever else you may be roping in), we'll blast it on the ML Plurk and Discord to ensure we capture everyone who might be interested in helping out!

Give us a holler if you need anything else. Thanks!

[evasives]

real quick mods - i think there might be some mix ups in regard to the last question.

was new omsk confused with another facility? in prior comments, you said they were all transferred out of new omsk before it was shut down, and in the latest one it says it collapsed.

does off the grid mean they died in reality? or is this a reference to something else? their special, secretive project after omsk having gotten them killed? (spinetail????)

[larkers]

Hey Tomato! Sorry - the mod who wrote this reply isn't as aware of this plot point, and the one who was aware didn't review the last answer on it. Sorry for the mix up! Let's just rewrite that as if that point never existed!

4. The scientists from New Omsk who went off the grid weren't erased, but instead died in the Spinetail incident. When Cassian checks in with Ren, he'll see the initials for those scientists (now that he's identified them) on the documentation that Ren received.

[realists]

with jovavich dead and thus her campaign suspended, jyn would want to make sure lynch kept up the tree planting project as governor because despite the insane greenery in new amsterdam. how would she go about contacting him/the governor's office since she can't cheat and use her work directory lmao

[nonscriptum]

Hey mods,

We talked about sorting out some potential consequences for the paper theft, so I'm posting here so that we can hash stuff out! :D

[larkers]

Hey Emma!

Contacting Lynch for something like this wouldn't actually be too tricky. She'd get one of his assistants, but they'd be happy to answer her questions on this. Basically, there isn't really room left for trees in New Amsterdam, and so Lynch has expanded this initiative to other megacities, encouraging the governors there to start planting. For example, New Oslo and New Prague are already known for their comparatively large green spaces, and will be happy to continue improving them. New Kyiv is small by megacity standards (only 3 million people!) and so has enough space to hop on the tree train as well.

[larkers]

Hey, Alex!

So, there are two ways that we can go about this. If you want to have parts of this plot take place before everyone is pulled into the AU, we can get talking about some options now. However, post-AU there is likely going to be a shift in how this plot is handled given that everyone will be remembering the events of the AU -- not just the Displaced, but the NPCs too! So Nate's status and the fact that he was so known in the AU world may alter what happens with this plot once things are back to normal.

For that reason, it might make the most sense to revisit this once the AU is over and work things out then, but if there are any elements of it you'd like to touch on pre-event, let us know and we can discuss.

Thanks!

[realists]

clutches chest, thanks for the info, assistant!

and thanks for the info, mods!

[nonscriptum]

(Thought I replied to this. Pro-tip: Don't move during a big rp event.)

I totally agree, we can revisit this when the AU event has run its course!

[apathet]

No rush on this as we're in the middle of eventing, but! Before the event Laura reached out to Cassius and ended up asking his help to start unfucking her Judas fuckup, and he said he'd get back to her about it after his move.

The thread is here for context, checking in so we can start digging down this road when the time is right!

[wittingly]

Ay fellas! In light of the recent celebrity status of some of the displaced, Ian's got an idea for his next project & I wanted to run it past ya'll first.

Basically it's using the same tech that projects sporting events or tv or whatever to people's implants, except it's a personal use future-mask that projects a different face over top of your face. It obviously wouldn't hold up to touch or intense scrutiny, and if people know it exists they could turn it off in their own implant the same way they turn off Implant TV or whatever we call it. Something temporary and scrappy for them to use to navigate through a crowd without getting swarmed on the sidewalk.

What's the word bird

[ishotyouuu]

Hello mods!

Wade's getting a little bored of his Red Wings job and wants to look into more "off the books" type work. I saw on one of the aftermath posts that mercenary jobs would be more accessible due to the sudden downturn of public opinion of the Displaced (I can't find the specific log now, so apologies if I've gotten this completely wrong), so I was wondering how Wade would go about finding a lead to his potential new occupation. Would he have to do something special to catch the attention of a specific person? Or could he just contact an NPC directly with his intentions? I'm open to plotting out anything!

[larkers]

Hi Kaiya!

Can you move this to our new Plot Engagement page?

Out of curiosity, where did you get this link? We want to make sure that we updated with the new page on the Nav and other relevant pages.

Thanks!

[ishotyouuu]

Oops, sorry! I was wondering why the Plot Engagements only showed things up to December, my bad.

As for where I got it, the old link is still on the Dreamscapes post. I'll move mine over to the correct page now, thanks for letting me know!