Plot post for February 16th - Poll results and preparation for the Season 1 Finale!

[theearth]

The results of the two polls are in!

RESULTS

In regards to the alien and Wise Snake battles, the majority have decided on Scenario 2:

The alien flees the farmhouse and escapes to Locke City, where it may be apprehended and destroyed. Its destruction will lead to the release of a burst of energy that will be felt by and immediately afterward awaken Wise Snake. Characters involved in the farmhouse battle will be in the fray with no-to-minimal time to prepare or recuperate; characters that participate in the battle against WS may be identified by non-reincarnates.

In regards to a breather period between Season 1 and Season 2, the majority have voted in favor of a breather period lasting two weeks.

So let’s get down to business.

The plot as a whole (the alien + Wise Snake) happens on the same day, but we will be staggering their respective posts. The post for the alien showdown will be forward-dated two weeks in advance. The post for Wise Snake’s awakening will be forward-dated at least a week in advance.

The alien post will go up no later than February 23rd. The IC-date of the post will be March 9th, a Sunday, during daylight hours.

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THE ALIEN

Much of the IC plan draft remains the same. However, Roxy (and Danny?) will use their intangibility to investigate the room with the keypad lock during the one-week period of surveillance (IC date: March 2 - 8) . Therefore, characters will know that the room is decorated to hell and back with various flowers and artificial lighting. There are two inhabitants in the room: the small alien, three apples high, and its "steed", seven feet tall. There are also computer screens and such, the designs of which look like they've come straight out of retro science fiction.

The activity of the small alien will be enough for the characters to guess that it is, in fact, the alien (rather than the seven feet tall robot).

Once the alien has reached a worrisome damaged state, it will flee the farmhouse via flight. It will fly towards Tuning Towers. Characters must finish the alien off. Even if this conclusion isn’t reached through threading, we will go forward with the assumption that the alien will be defeated and subsequently explode.

The explosion will not be traditionally fiery or loud. It will be more like an invisible force bursting outward in a ring that will be felt by both non-reincarnates and reincarnates. The reincarnates will feel it much, much more, though. It won’t hurt, but it will have the effect of knocking reincarnates off their feet, temporarily disorienting them, etc.

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WISE SNAKE

Immediately following the alien’s destruction, an earthquake similar to the one that occurred on December 3rd will strike as Wise Snake emerges from below Tuning Towers. Wise Snake is several blocks long and light pink. It will go on an indiscriminate rampage that does not target any one thing, but will respond to attacks on itself. It does not have any special “attacks”; it is a monster of brute force. However, it is capable of shedding individual scales which reform into miniature snakes ranging approximately 10 to 30 feet long. Unlike David Proud’s statues, they will not explode upon destruction.

Reincarnates will not be the only ones engaging Wise Snake in battle. The National Guard will be deployed to destroy Wise Snake as a threat on the city. They will not intentionally harm those involved in battle, but they will not go to great lengths to prevent harm to them, either. Basically, if you’re in the way, you better get out of the way.

The defeat of Wise Snake will result in an explosion very similar to the explosion following the alien’s destruction. Unlike the alien, however, Wise Snake will not physically explode, but immediately turn into mundane stone and release ethereal bubbles that float into the sky before disappearing, not unlike video game bosses.

Wise Snake will be defeated after taking an unspecified amount of hits from both the reincarnates and the military. The mods will not be NPCing Wise Snake. Players are free to incorporate Wise Snake’s reactions into their threads using the aforementioned information. Players who do not wish to engage their character directly with Wise Snake will have a thread in which they can set up their own open or planned threads in response to the destruction caused by Wise Snake, its miniature scale snakes, and/or the National Guard. In short, characters can be as plausibly involved as their players want them to be.

Wise Snake’s scale snakes can be NPCed by the mods by request.

Players will be responsible for NPCing civilians. Assume they’re in a panicked state similar to city populaces that are under attack – ex. a lot of the city-wide battles in superhero films.

The threading for the actual moment of Wise Snake’s defeat will be restricted to selected characters. The following criteria will be used: characters who possess offensive abilities, characters who have not yet had a moment to shine, characters who can feasibly be involved in the battle, players who are reliable taggers, players who are reasonably active.

If you’re interested, please sign up here before the 23rd. We’ll do our best to make a speedy selection and throw together the team so involved parties may plan how they might wish to go about executing the final barrage of attacks.

Characters who don’t make an effort to reasonably obscure/conceal their identity and use unusual powers will eventually have their identities squirreled out by the FBI.

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THE AFTERMATH – IMMEDIATE

A good chunk of the business district will be in ruins. The damage radius may be larger depending on character action. There will be a lot of casualties. Emergency responders will be working alongside the National Guard in rescue efforts.

On a more light-hearted side, though, if there’s enough interest, players will have the option of a news reporter pulling their character over for a brief interview. Players are free to NPC their interviewers or request a mod to NPC. We’d probably add this thread onto the Wise Snake post later on.

If you’re interested, let us know!

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THE AFTERMATH – TWO WEEKS

This will constitute our two-week breather period.

The entirety of the business district will be without power or water for several days. Rescue efforts will continue. Schools will be closed for a few days. The FBI will investigate the remains of Wise Snake, but the monster will, for the meantime, remain where it fell. The area will be guarded in part by local police, sniffer dogs among them.

Locke City and its “real life superheroes” will be a hot topic around the world. There will be several shitty phone videos of Wise Snake’s rampage in which characters may be (poorly) visible if players wish uploaded onto YouTube. Some people will think they’re great. Others will think they’re an abomination. Still others will think this is all an elaborate hoax. Feel free to come up with different public opinions!

The FBI and local PD are going to want the identities of any reincarnates who displayed unusual abilities during Wise Snake’s rampage. However, during this two-week period, no characters will be openly investigated. All characters whose identities were intentionally or accidentally revealed will be covertly monitored.

This gets tricky for the characters who Echo back mecha units. Their size makes them easy targets for the FBI to locate and potentially acquire. Players who are planning to Echo back large, easily noticeable robots/units/etc., please go to this thread.

Regardless, we’ll put up another OOC post specifically for the two weeks after the defeat of the alien and Wise Snake once we’re closer to it. The rest of what happens during these two weeks – damage control, relief aid, national confusion, worldwide attention, etc. – will be considered background noise.

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ECHO OPPORTUNITIES

Participation in the battle with the alien grants one Echo. Proximity to Wise Snake grants one Tier 2 Echo independent of the monthly Tier 2 limit. As always, canon recurrences grant related Echoes!

Please direct questions regarding these plot points to the thread below and not the post in general.

Comments

GENERAL QUESTIONS

[theearth]

[alilyinthemoonslight]

Precure question, re: identities.

Generally in Precure across... pretty much every series, if a girl is transformed, anyone who sees them and doesn't already know their identity usually can't tell who they are. Like, even family. (A good for instance is early in Suite Precure when Cure Melody has some direct interaction with her father who is none the wiser.)

There's some occasional wiggle room for this, but... general rule is the old magical girl standby of no matter how much they look like their untransformed state, they're not recognized.

I also completely forgot to ask this when I applied!

So... how does that play here?

[peacefulwinter]

I have a severe wrench to add here - I intend Winter to come in contact with the press at some point, and assuming nobody has a really compelling reason to do otherwise, reveal both of her identities. While that won't directly affect anyone else on the team, it's worth noting - once you know a Precure's civilian identity, their ability to transform doesn't mean a whole lot for their identity anymore. (I know you know this, Ken, I'm just making sure everyone's on the same page.)

[theearth]

We consider that a setting-specific passive ability and thus each Precure would be required to Echo it back. Without that Echo, Precures in their transformed state can be recognized as their untransformed state as much as the next person. For example, up close there would be no doubt that Lily is Precure Moonlight. From a distance, however, there's more uncertainty because her hair color/style is different.

[vanisland]

The local PD is pretty firmly established as villainous for the time being, and I'm not sure if that's going to change.

However, the FBI is an unknown. Are they going to be treating the reincarnates much the same way as the LCPD, or does it depend on the way they present themselves?

Unrelated to the above, my intent is for Miranda to echo back a Dive Machine as a result of proximity to Wise Snake - the biggest issue with this is that it will enable her to (eventually, since she won't know how it works) develop magic based on her own emotions, rather than Mir's. Is this a dealbreaker, or can alternate arrangements be made, or do such new spells not need approval at all?

[theearth]

The FBI will treat the reincarnates as people of interest. They will not consider the reincarnates allies OR enemies. Basically the FBI will begin as a neutral party with a healthy dose of "what the hell is going on?"

Their opinion on the reincarnates, at the moment, will be influenced by the way the reincarnates present themselves.

Can you give us a basic rundown of how the Dive Machine and Miranda creating her own magic based on her emotions work?

Re: GENERAL QUESTIONS

[siesinddasessen]

What material is Wise Snake made of?

Re: GENERAL QUESTIONS

[theearth]

Something akin to marble in appearance, but much more durable.

[pianistofraielin]

The National Guard's job in a state of emergency is to prevent civilian casualties, which involves organizing an evacuation effort and setting up refugee shelters as well as neutralizing the threat. Will they have people doing this for the business district and surrounding areas?

What's the range on the kinetic blasts from the alien and snake deaths? IE how far out will people be able to feel them? Will only people be able to feel them or will they cause any structural damage as well?

What are the potential repercussions of your character being investigated by the FBI? Like, are they going to have to go into hiding and live as fugitives like those investigated by the police in season 1? Basically I think people should have a general idea of what they'll be getting into before making the decision of whether or not to have their character identified.

[espigeonage]

The limits on how far people can be from Locke without losing all their echoes - do those lift with Wise Snake's demise, or does it take a little longer?

Re: GENERAL QUESTIONS

[strikeraid]

Should we time requesting our Wise Snake/Alien Fight echoes at some point before the event? I know you've set up the fights so they're mostly player driven, but I'd expect there'd be some delay on Echo approvals anyway if we all suddenly requested them at the same time. Is there any way we can facilitate the Echo process so it goes more smoothly for you guys?

[alilyinthemoonslight]

Sorry for the second question post here, but this is more of a personal one, whereas the previous one was more all-encompassing as it applies to both my cast mates and I.

I want Moonlight to regain her Moon Tact from the Wise Snake echo, and I know it's been said that given the sheer size of the Tier 2 echoes stemming off of it that they can enable more things at once than normal. (Such as the mecha people getting their mechas and so forth.)

Getting it as a bunch of Tier 1s, Lily would normally have had to go through the Tact by itself, but useless, then everything bit by bit until it was any good. So bearing in mind everything she can POTENTIALLY regain on it (the Tact itself, activation phrases, energy waves/blasts, first special attack, and second far more powerful finishing attack) how best would that be approached, do you think?

[keywarding]

This is Holly specific. Originally, I had down to request her four elemental cards for the attack, since they are the strongest in her deck. Since she got back Firey through a canon re-occurrence in December from seeing Ellie use a fire spell, would it be possible to replace that one powerful card with the Fly card and her costume she used to fight Eriol.

The reason for it would be the fact she used all these cards during that fight, and it was a FINAL BATTLE which is what Wise Snake should put off for her. She'll have the same feelings as well attached to it, a lot of worry and the need to protect those close to her.

On another point, less about Wise Snake and more about her being able to use the cards. Originally I was having a hard time trying to find a way to get back her summoning chant but just realized today that the chant is only used to unseal the wand. From what I know of the series, the wand doesn't return to the key form without her willing it to. Since I echoed back the wand in it's unsealed form would it be okay to have her start playing with Firey at her house. There would be a lot of unsuccessful attempts, but eventually she'll pull a Spider Man movie ala Toby Mcquire and just start saying random magical phrases at the card with the wand out and finally settle on saying the cards name, which would summon it.

If that's okay then by the time Wise Snake shows, she'll be more confident with the cards and not be scrambling.

[youngestone]

How close do you have to be to the Wise Snake to get the Echo? Do you have to be fighting it, or would just being in the area looking for someone count?

snk spoilers duh

[toobig]

Okay so a bunch of the Titans are going to be shifting at this thing, and I want Bertl to kick the snake thing tbh. Because that's kind of his MO. What sort of damage would a 30M titanic monster do kicking Wise Snake

(he's 30M since Blue said his shifting powers would be halved at first so about 200ft unstead of 400ft.)

[testsonseashells]

how vulnerable is the snake to intense heat?

[centurian]

Hey so... SEEING THAT GERALD IS AN FBI AGENT, what can reasonably be expected of him?

Also, what might happen if he's seen at the scene of the whole Wise Snake thing? Could he say he was just "responding", or would he have to undergo debriefing?

[gogoghostpowers]

How will the FBI approach network Keys, should their identities be outed? Will they receive the same neutral treatment as regular reincarnates, or will they be arrested or something else a little more dangerous?

Also, just double-checked the top-level info and saw: "The FBI and local PD are going to want the identities of any reincarnates who displayed unusual abilities during Wise Snake’s rampage." Even if the FBI is a neutral party (for now), does this mean they would be sharing identities with the Locke PD and if so would the police handle them as roughly as they have previous reincarnates? Or is the FBI going to be keeping them in check now oooor what?

[gogoghostpowers]

WOW YES HI I'M BACK AGAIN AND I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO ASK THIS QUESTION WEEKS AGO

So Chuck's parents are Mexican diplomats! I have a feeling this event will certainly cause problems for US representatives/international diplomats stationed in Locke, and they will have some work to do on this front.

Is there anything I should know that will be done politically about this? Discussions, decisions, restrictions, etc...? I mean, I may be NPCing Chucks' parents but I don't want to NPC any decisions on behalf of entire countries here!

Re: GENERAL QUESTIONS

[strikeraid]

Question!! Will the two week rest period be in IC or OOC time? That is, will the two week break period begin OOCly the day the snake log goes up and end on the 16th-ish, or does it begin ICly on the 9th and end on the 23rd?

[seriallylucky]

About how big and secure are WS's scales? As in, would it be feasible to stab "behind" one with an ordinary sword and do damage, or would my guy be better served to either tag along with someone who can break scales or focus on the smaller snakes?

Re: GENERAL QUESTIONS

[icy_heavens]

Okay, so. In regards to how much damage Toushirou and Shiro combined could get in on Wise Snake before the takedown occurs (since they're not part of that team, but the setup for that thread indicates that Wise Snake has taken some obvious hits).

Basically, with the powers they've echoed back at the time of the fight, Toushirou would be trying to freeze over portions of Wise Snake by sending his ice dragons careening into it. The intent would be to make these areas more brittle and thus more vulnerable to damage. Assuming he can have this effect, how much damage would a Getsuga Tenshou from Shiro be able to do if it hit a weaker spot?

[unelven]

Question Question! So Teagan is a public figure, so he'll definitely set up an interview in the days following the destruction. Should I post that day-or-two later interview in the interview thread or somewhere else since it's. after the fact?

Re: GENERAL QUESTIONS

[hollowleg]

MORE QUESTIONS KEEP POPPING UP

Would Shiro be able to bring Skullsy's head and maybe some other parts back with him or would they explode or DO SOME OTHER WACKY THING??

And if so, if he were to give it to someone like Chris (or other techies) would they find anything useful?

[detectivetroll]

Wow I am so sorry that these questions are coming this late, but most of them are two-week breather related, so they're just hitting me now that we're doing post-snake stuff!

With the alien and the snake dead, what are the corrupt police being told about the state of things? What are their orders for the moment, and what are they being told to tell the FBI/media/etc.?

Nick will be specifically asking both Sherman and Chief Edwards, if he can, about what the hell happened with the alien and what it has to do with the giant pink snake. If they aren't worried about the aliens' demise, he'll want to know why, and he'll want to know where they're going from there.

Finally, Nick is going to want to leak a list of the reincarnates that are being covertly monitored, just to give the network a heads up! I don't know if there actually is a list of all of those names, or if one was going to be made, because that's... a lot of characters to keep track of. But would it be possible for me to do this, even if it's just in the post as (attached is a list of names of all characters who whose identities were intentionally or accidentally revealed, it's up to you if your characters are on it) or something?