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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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no subject
daisy and rey will be following up on what became of the morningstar agents who were not recovered.
first, they will have made good faith attempts to talk to / question the rescued morningstar agents who are being moved out of the city, trying to find out if they knew those specific agents who were lost, if they had any similar purposes within morningstar, etc.
then, they will return to the homes of the now-abducted agents. rey will stand watch while daisy tries to hack into any of their home's tech and figure out patterns in routines, look for surveillance bugs, or anything of the sort. in addition to this, daisy will be trying to hack into their electronic history via cloud. she's looking for transaction histories, private messages, etc. to a) track their movements before abduction, b) look for signs of how they might have been spotted, c) look for patterns in how targets were chosen.
any information on what they would experience or find out in this would be appreciated!
no subject
As always, we'll address the different scenarios in order.
1. If they ask any of the Morningstar operatives/contacts before they leave the city, they'll find that the individuals that were taken had a number of different roles. Truthfully, the impression that they'll get was that the few who were successfully taken were either a) the victims of bad luck or b) were priority targets because of their positions in the city and that's why they were taken out first. One of the people successfully taken was, for instance, the junior member of the committee that Ellie referred to here for Peggy's plot. As a result, you'll likely want to connect with her as you have your characters investigate this! There was also an assistant to a bank's vice president, the bank itself largely manages the secure and encrypted funds for the major corporations around the city. There will also be a janitor at the UN Embassy. That won't seem like much, but they were there for years, and were also a long-time member of Morningstar as one of its most veteran members in the city.
The other captives are victims of bad luck and timing, being in places that weren't far from the homes of the previous three individuals. If Rey and Daisy look at the mapping that Daisy herself set up, they'll easily realize that certain sectors were more easily accessible to the UNA's early onslaught. There was a method to the eventual madness, so to speak.
There would be no sentiment among the rescued operatives and contacts that they felt followed or tracked in any way leading up to this attack. There would be the sentiment that there wouldn't be the need for that given the government's widespread surveillance and accesses around the city if they chose to utilize them.
2. None of the homes will reveal anything, largely because the real estate market in New Amsterdam moves swiftly. Some of these apartments will already be rented out, with people moved in, and it'll be very difficult to get inside unless they hack their way in. Even then, they'll want to make sure no one's home!
Otherwise, they'll want to start early on any of the cloud information because - as always - most of it has been scrubbed. If they started early, they'll see instances of normal social media use, though a couple of them would've been cagey about it, using it minimally because of their double life. There won't be any Morningstar communication as that's all done on a separate and thoroughly encrypted network, though there will be the occasional instance where they were clearly communicating with other Morningstar agents as friends. Gaby, Casper, and El won't be among these people, likely confirming that they're either very careful or their names are aliases (and by now, Rey would know from her time in doing jobs for Morningstar that it's the latter).
Any other cloud use would involve information about their lives: pictures, favored music and television shows, and a lot of what someone might find on someone's Google Drive. Transaction history and banking history would only be found as encrypted files leading back to someone's banking institution - none of this would be readily available, and would be considered "hard mode" for Daisy.
All of this information will be scrubbed within days of the initial attacks, seeming to almost erase these people as if they never existed. Social media posts including these individuals will vanish. The actions will be very thorough.
no subject
would el and gaby be willing to share with rey who in morningstar would have access to a membership file with this kind of information if she wanted to turn the investigation inward? it seems highly unusual to their usual operating procedures that somebody could just get a list of real names if they're consistently using aliases even with one another, so they'd have to be high up. she'd try to leverage that she's been actively advocating for morningstar's goals from very early on (including robin hooding supplies around the tent cities) to get them to trust her with morningstar hierarchy info. mostly she's looking for the names of other possible morningstar agents who might have been compromised into becoming a leak.
relatedly, she might suggest/question if maybe the junior committee member, the bank VP's assistant, or the embassy janitor would have had access to it because those — especially the bank VP assistant — seem like high profile targets who could have been found out sooner and let to the reveal of the others.
no subject
We actually want to make two notes of clarification, because we want to encourage your overall direction. First - you're actually very close to a piece of plot information, so we definitely want to encourage this. It had to have been someone (or multiple someones) with privileged information. That leads to our second point: while the majority of Morningstar agents found their home invaded by the UNA, there were a small handful of newer recruits who were left alone - with Gaby being the unusual exception on either side of this knowledge. Gaby had mentioned that the information wasn't up to date, but she hasn't worked out the exact cut off for when someone was too new to be visible to the UNA.
Rey and Daisy's search is on the right track, but it couldn't have been anyone taken the night of the attacks (and the three aforementioned NPCs were). The UNA worked to divide and conquer, and couldn't have executed the plan as successfully if they only got it that night. The only reason why so many abductions were stopped is because the majority of the PC force went to save people from being taken from their homes. They wouldn't have left any target in the field to pry information out of them ahead of the attacks, as that would have tipped Morningstar off that something was coming their way.
no subject
so flipping the script: would it be possible for gaby and el to provide a list of the new morningstar recruits who were left alone for rey and other displaced/morningstar agents (she wouldn't want to leak morningstar agent info to ppl who haven't signed up, but others like kylo and keith have signed up--editing to clarify: i haven't talked to those players yet, i think rey would probably approach various morningstar-displaced privately to ask if they'd help out and i'll approach those ppl ooc if this goes somewhere so they can list questions too) to question and prod at ?
not even new members who would have file access but all of them just in case one of them like hacked it somehow.
no subject
They would be able to provide those people, and unfortunately, they've been moved out of the city with everyone else. Since surveillance would have caught them being brought out of their apartments, they've been revealed to be a part of Morningstar just the same. None of them would have had high level access since, like the displaced, they would have been on a probationary period - albeit with a little more give and take of a relationship because they were established in world and could offer Morningstar more in return.
El and Gaby would also give approximate dates for their joining up, and it would all date back to early July and later. In providing this information, Gaby would offer to put Rey in touch with some of the older agents via a secure channel to ask about the agents who were involved in the bus crash in June where they attacked the mercenaries carrying the displaced. If she's willing to do the legwork and reach out, she may be able to get a sense of who would have this information, especially since all of those agents were taken and swept away before any Morningstar operatives could come to claim their own.
no subject
Rey's gonna want to approach Gaby about getting Morningstar to pass supplies around in New Tokyo tents post-damage (which is dovetailing into Peggy's PRESERVE thing to be clear) and in the same conversation also touch on the possibility of recirculating the footage of the displaced fighting the monster to New Tokyo social media to promote hope and general morale -- giving the impression these things are beatable, etc., and not to be disheartened. You know, Jedi/Resistance stuff because that's how she processes Morningstar's role.
no subject
Following up later is definitely all right!
Gaby would tell Rey about the efforts to go to New Tokyo and would encourage her to go. Getting that footage would be nearly impossible, however - El has some footage saved, but it would obviously be from security cameras rather than anyone's neural implant and social media feed. She'd point out that the sentiment is a great one, but there's a reason why Morningstar doesn't engage in propaganda (and it's largely that it would go Very Poorly for anyone seen supporting them). However, if she makes it about the Displaced and what they can accomplish, it may work better.
Gaby would point out the other issue, however: that it would be like what happened in New Amsterdam after people filmed footage of the Displaced taking down the monster in our August event. The NAPD would be reluctant to allow people to feel like they can attack monsters themselves, especially after such a devastating event. This would be primarily done in an effort to keep people feeling as if they can be heroes or vigilantes out to save the day. If this circulated, it might be deleted before long.
That said, all of this would be put on hold because of the current dream event! We encourage you to use the dream event to do similar things to what Rey has in mind here, and even be encouraged to do it there since the real world isn't going to be as pliant or flexible about this approach.