Chapter 4 OOC & Plotting

[thenine]

Chapter 4 Launch

Chapter 4 Event Log is up for your review. Please feel free to post there or your own logs for the event - whichever works best for you.

Chapter 4 Calendar / Timeline is available here for the expected timeline of the month.

To help you get started, here are some potential quick notes for things you could do with these prompts--but feel free to expand or come up with something entirely on your own!

Prompt Notes

The Nine

All with significant Qreshi ties have been summoned to a party thrown by Lady Kendry aboard a pleasure ship in orbit of Qresh itself. It's advertised as a social gathering, but in reality will be used to discuss and push forward an official response to the repeal of the Seventh Generation Accords.

RAC agents and Company employees have been tasked with the event's security, and will be stationed both aboard the ship and required to patrol the flightpath in their own vessels.

The Company

Bonuses are given to those who punished rioters with brutal force, while those deemed too 'soft' by the Company are given acclimation training. Those assigned to this training will be partnered with a stricter officer and sent to a volatile area to complete a mission. Finally, stress training has been offered to all - and made mandatory for some - in light of the worsening situation on the streets of Old Town.

Westies

The riots have waned, people splintering off to their own spheres. Some return to work, some join the Resistance, and some take advantage of the chaos to assert control. Gangs calling themselves 'Resistance' have sprung up all over town, and take their territory very seriously. Attacks on those with assumed Company sympathies grow more frequent, the lack of a side assumed by both the Company and the faux Resistance to be the wrong side.

Leithians

Ripples of the disorder gripping Westerley are beginning to rock the tenuous peace on Leith. The Resistance movement has spread, its righteous hatred with it, gathering groups - some independent and some connected to their sister organizations on Weaterley - focused on change. Strikes come and go, chants nothing but echos of those from weeks before, dispersing as quickly as they form. Neighbors grow distrustful as land reallocation drives funds away from humanitarian efforts to focus on security and familial financial safety. Scattered throughout this are kidnappings, a few members of closed societies disappearing with little trace. Towards the end of the chapter, a major hokk farm becomes the target of an arson attack, clogging the air with ash for days.

Even still, Leithians respond with near uniform disregard, keeping their heads down and hoping to avoid catching the Company's gaze--and authority--in the wrong light.

Resistance

The riots and discontent of the previous chapters have seen this faction's number swell. But with no clear pillar of leadership and only the myth of Hyperion available for most people, rival factions are born with their own political agendas. Many of them feed into the rumors about the mysterious Hyperion figure, painting a dark picture of a secretive and too-polished ruler who's too disconnected from the people to truly care about their plight.

Meanwhile, Hyperion allows the rumors to build without comment, growing its cells and continuing to hand out missions and intel from the shadows. Each team is given a compartmentalized mission with little connection between their last run, but when the parts come together to form a whole towards the end of the chapter... the future promised by Hyperion takes a dark, bloodier turn than some may be able to abide.

The RAC

With the lower level evaluations completed, it's time for the RAC to focus on both bolstering their top-most field ranks and weeding out and agents that have lost their ability to remain impartial. Any Level 4 killjoy that wants to test for level 5 needs to sign up for a Level 5 warrant on the warrant post. Additionally, there will be sign up threads for any killjoys that want to be ousted and lose their position within the RAC.

Please note - anyone who loses their position as a killjoy will be dropped into Westerley as a temporary citizen. It will be up to the character to find employment that allows for long term work visa status.

Major Plot Points

Metaplot: Digital Dreams

Due to the way the meshwork interacts with the memory modification chips implanted into characters' brains, their subconsciouses may be projected to any other character with modified memories. All characters may participate in this event, regardless of their level of activity on the network, though frequent users will find themselves the subject of more broadcasts.

These visions occur only when both parties are unconscious - this includes sleeping, high, or drunken states. You may take scenes from your character's AU history, canon history, or mere fantasies they have and work through them as you chose. The only requirements are as follows:

✗ There must be blue-green auras pervading where they should not, a dissonance with any memory or fantasy that is not your character's own subconscious creation. Some may also see an abandoned laboratory, though its presence will only be in disjointed flashes, and its purpose unclear.

✗ The observing character will be pervaded by the emotions of the character having the dream. Rather than this being a complete personality overwrite, it's more of an emotional resonance between the dreamer and the visiting character so that, if they find themselves in an urgent situation, both will feel the tension, or heartbreak will be felt by both, etc…

✗ The character having the dream will awaken with blurry memories of the event at most, while the character visiting the dream may remember things more vividly.

✗ Characters do not know, or care, that they are dreaming. Cognitive dissonance may enable them to have some idea that they're not conscious, but 'waking up' will not occur to them, nor will questioning how they've arrived to the dreamscape. As the location will seem natural to the character having the dream, the visitor will also feel 'right' being there in that moment.

✗ There is no limit to the amount of dreams you may have. As such, we encourage you to create your own logs for this part of the plot.

Resistance - Hyperion Missions & Recruitment

Due to some drops, we'll be opening up the Hyperion teams again for recruitment. Depending on the number of characters who sign up, we may create an additional team and safehouse set up. Please sign up using this top-level! Sign ups will remain open until 3/20.

New missions will be disseminated through the team NPCs (mod-controlled) on their respective calendar dates but will be much more subdued than the first and second waves in order to allow everyone time to continue working on their original missions.

RAC - Promotions (or Demotions)

We will be contacting players who signed up for last chapter's evaluations (Level 1-4) to find out the outcome! As long as you've started the thread, you're welcome to handwave/continue working on it in the meantime and we'll mark it as a success (or failure, if you like) when it's announced ICly on W7D3.

Level 5 evaluations will be open to all Level 4 characters--whether they were recently promoted or not--and announced ICly on W7D6. Level 5 evals will be done with the evaluating agent leading a Level 5 kill warrant (obtained from the monthly warrant posting) and at least one other killjoy. Since these evaluations will be handled by NPCs, you'll need to form temporary teams (if you're not already part of them). Similar to how we've handled the lower-level evals, we'll check in with you next chapter to see the success or failure of the evaluation!

(Note, however, that killjoys who have a marked history of psychological instability will encounter evaluations which specifically test their mental fortitude and ability to abide the RAC's oath of neutrality.)

Sign ups will be handled via the monthly warrant posting where you'll receive your customized warrant prompt. You are welcome to include non-killjoy characters in your team, but at least one of your teammates should be on the RAC roster.

Company Acclimation and Training

Based on your reports during last AC, characters who did not follow Company mandate or did so in a way that cost their employers punitive damages, characters have been assigned to stress and/or acclimation training. The specific details of what that training entails can be found in the chapter log, but outside of those parameters, you are free to create your own teams and particulars as best suits your interests. The only provision is that a character slotted for acclimation training should be paired with a character who is not -- i.e., someone who received accolades for their conduct by being granted higher weapon clearance.

If you're having trouble coming up with prompts to fit the missions, feel free to PM the mod account and one will be provided for you!

CR Meme Template

<b>Character</b>: <b>Location</b>: <b>Primary Faction Goals</b>: <b>Secondary Faction Goals</b>: <b>Desired CR</b>: <b>Offered CR</b>: <b>Anything else?</b>

Comments

sion astal | company

[sunderings]

Character: Sion Astal
Location: Primarily Westerley; Secondarily (to a much lesser extent) Leith
Primary Faction Goals: Continue to work from within the Company to see it changed into an organization free of the Nine and with the purpose of protecting Westerley.... L-lofty dreams, Sion has.
Secondary Faction Goals: Make a safehouse in the Bandlands, dabbling in research to bolster Westerley's resistance and fighting forces (...through human experimentation...) in the event that war well and truly should break out, making resistance ties, and miscellaneous do-gooding.
Desired CR:
☆ Sion got slapped in the face with Company acclimation training no one at all was surprised, a partnership for this would be great!! Expect Sion to still use non-violent means to contain civilians though........ Spoilers: he didn't learn anything.
☆ People (Company, Westies, Resistance, RAC!!) to do some gang-fighting with. GOTTA KEEP INNOCENT PEOPLE SAFE !!
☆ Animosity....... from resistance members or civilians who don't know he's a huge softie who boasts resistance leanings anyway.
☆ RAC agents he can possibly warrant (or resistance members???) to help with building a safehouse in the Badlands!!
Offered CR:
☆ CRAZY DREAMS. Sion is v. emotional (too emotional, too intense) and if anyone needs to feel his super crazy empathy for what's happening on/to Westerley, he's your guy!!
☆ RESCUES.... With the violence escalating on Westerley, Sion will definitely protect anyone and everyone, regardless of their affiliations. Alternatively, his dream/memories range from supersparklesunshine dreams of a peaceful world to darker subjects... like crazy bodyhorror/Goddesses/the sacrifices of Kingship.
Anything else? Uh...?! Stays on trend, or something.....

[impulsors]

i am gonna be spotty about my activity this month but sion looks so pretty in that icon that i had to stop by. HELLO HELLO, NICE TO MEET YOU, PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT:

- his safehouse plans! how's he gonna recruit, is he calling for actual physical labor, etc etc;
- his worst nightmare;
- his hair regime if not previously patented.

[sunderings]

Keith!! Also I am hella back-tag friendly, so don't worry, let's plot away!!

For safehouse shenanigans, Sion will likely issue the most vague warrant possible with a high price tag to draw in Killjoys before briefing them about the project himself. The warrant can include supply delivery/construction, but for Keith and his mad crazy piloting, maybe supply delivery would be the easiest thing to do o/

FOR DREAMS... If you wanted to go the canon route it's this scenario where Sion is subsumed by the God he's the incarnation of, loses all ability to reason, and devours the people he loves (literally) and then the world. His canon is special I'm so sorry.

.......his hair regime is also on total lockdown but if Keith and Sion ever get to galpal level Sion would happily do Keith's hair for him. Sion isn't into skincare and high maintenance beauty like Lance but he knows a trick or two!!

[impulsors]

THANKS, SION, say i unironically, keith would be impossible to get into anything fun if it weren't for meddling. ): delivery sounds fun! are we talking about the resistance's super-secret safehouses or is sion doing something for westies. . . though. . . i ask because i'm sleepy and he seems like a do-gooder.

and o god, that's so pretty. (you say "special" and i'm like "but aesthetics!") hmmmmmmm, would you be willing to have sion to dream that so soon? i feel like keith would just be Forever Horrified by what he'd witnessed, yell at sion, and immediately try to crash a ship into the safehouse's construction zone if he weren't talked down from his ledge of LOOK, THAT WASN'T REAL AND BELIEVING IN YOUR DREAMS IS A FILM CLICHE, STOP WITH THE PROPERTY DESTRUCTION.

[sunderings]

TL;DR Sion had his bff Ryner do a geological survey of the Badlands to find an area that wasn't too toxic and suitable for building a safehouse nnnooot specifically for the resistance, but for anyone who needed to escape the eyes of the Company/Nine or just the violence currently engulfing Old Town.

Sion is, in fact, a do-gooder. It's his most profound character flaw. 8'(

Aaaand I was flitting around with the idea, actually, of introducing his 'darker sider' for precisely that reason. So I'm down for dream-sharing that, in specific, if you're okay with Keith dealing with Sion's emotional baggage regarding it ahaha. Sion's very much a character who's afraid of himself, but covers it with smiles and HEY KEITH, KEEEEITH, LETS FLY TO LEITH AND WALK THE BAZAAR AND GO SHOPPING.

I apologize for him in advance.

[impulsors]

i am absolutely up for trying! though i feel like i should warn that keith is all for ignoring what you can't deal with immediately and moving forward, but he's also willfully mean on occasion and i've no idea if sion's the type who works well with blunt talk (read: extreme rudeness) or not.

BUT YES, LET'S DO IT. minus the shopping, because why this.

[sunderings]

because shopping.

But, uh! Let's go with the issuing of the warrant first, and Keith meeting with Sion to discuss it? Somewhere off-the-charts would probably be for the best. Does Keith have his own ship? Iiiffff not, they can meet in the charity clinic that Sion's sister set up in Old Town's slums.

I can set it for early week 7. o/

[impulsors]

he does not! he's still level one. so the clinic'd be great, bless. ♥

[somnusrex]

So uh. Wanna do a dream thing, maybe?

And idk when Sion will be doing his acclimation training but if he still assigns Ryner to security for the Qreshi thing we could do something with that.

I'm such a blank slate on actual plans right now but I swear I'll do something. I just have no idea what. I do have some dream ideas floating around though, and should Ryner learn of the acclimation training thing he's going to get super protective and try to do...stuff.

Basically I am useless and I apologize.

[sunderings]

Getting Ryner armor up as security for the Qreshi summit is still a priority of Sion's! He would very much want Ryner to eavesdrop where he could/pass information along.

What sort of dream-scenarios were you thinking about for Ryner?

[somnusrex]

Nice, he'd be annoyed about spying but it's a lot better than other things.

And I was thinking of going full Broadcast Mind-esque in regard to emotional trauma and have him dream about himself and Tiir leaving the battlefield together after Sion confesses to signing the order to put him down if he goes rabid. But I'm horrible and love this stuff so I mean /shrugs xD

[sunderings]

lbr, Ryner would only be annoyed because he'd have to stay awake the entire time.

Also, after the party, Sion would likely ask that Ryner either step in to help people on Leith, or further their project in the Badlands!! Keeps him busy...... so he doesn't notice the trouble Sion got into with the higher-ups hahaha.

And oh no that dream. 8'(

[somnusrex]

Well, obviously. That'll be a long assignment, Sion's a tyrant, etc. etc.

He would be all about helping people on Leith. The project in the Badlands might get him grumpy depending on how things are going elsewhere, unless of course Sion talks to him for once, which we know he won't. xD

And yeah, it was the first dream idea to come to mind. I was thinking either that or the balcony scene where he tells Sion he'll be a crap king if he dies now. But I'm more for emotional trauma than humor xD

[rhygret]

BUILDING A PLACE IN THE BADLANDS YOU SAY....

Rhys would love to invest in that and also maybe make a testing location out of that if that's....a thing...that would maybe be okay??

[sunderings]

TESTING LOCATION.....

It's possible, if Rhys was willing to fund it! Sion's end goal is to construct a safehouse similar to the one used by the Nine, protected by a barrier n'such. On a less grand scale, of course, and the barrier would likely be comprised of programmable matter (because Sion's experienced with it).

Just promise him you're not entirely in this for personal gain, Rhys. H-he'll want to believe you!!

[rhygret]

Oh heck yes Rhys would be down for this???? And he is totally......doing this for like


not personal/power gain at all nope nope no sirree!! at least that's what his friends keep reminding him Rhys has enough money to fund it no probs! And if you're interested the location scouted could have a bonus gift of flesh-eating, hallucinogenic mossiflies the mods gave me to work with when Rhys built his own 8') so we could double-up on those if you want, too!

[sunderings]

Hallucinogenic mossiflies in addition to the Black Rain storms which already plague the place...... it sounds like party time !!

We'd just need to figure out a way for Sion and Rhys to connect. If Rhys has been poking around/looking for Company records on the area, he'd find that Sion had a subordinate stationed out in the Badlands for quite awhile doing a geological survey.

[rhygret]

He has definitely been doing this!! He was also at the summit pitching his idea to fix up the Badlands, if Sion was there he might've heard/seen him?

But the subordinate in the badlands doing geological surveys would be of huuuuge interest to him so that woudl definitely work

[sunderings]

Sion was at the summit and under guard by both Kanda and Lavi! c:

What were some of the things Rhys hit on in his pitch?

[ofobedience]

Dream shenanigans!

[sunderings]

It's time to big-brother little!Gio!!!

Also since Gio is likely attending the Nine's summit (??) Sion will likely ask him what went down there once Gio has returned. GENUINELY WANTS TO KNOW GIO'S OWN OPINION ON IT.... n'such.

[ofobedience]

CUTE

And cool yes, we can do that! Gio will probably have been mostly bored out of his mind but LOL he'll be paying attention and will no doubt have some things to say about it.

[inksplashes]

hey not!allen

still wanna have a warm fuzzy dream about close friendships and then feel the crushing weight of realizing that friend never existed/isn't ever there

[sunderings]

absolutely!

it's not like sion would pester lavi about it at all afterward

and subsequently make lavi even more uncomfortable.

and if sometime over the course of the chapter, lavi would like to be the interloper in one of sion's own dreams, that's cool too!!

[r3f4c70r3d]

Why do y'all keep coming out to the badlands..................I've talked about this a bit with Dolly (Rhys mun) but Angel resides there secretly and does not want people getting near her (I'm sure Handsome Jack doesn't want this either) so if you want to plot some attempted sabotage...