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.
no subject
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:
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: 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.