Plot post for February 24th

[theearth]

PLOTTING POST

---

This format of plot post is designed for players to ask questions and find ways to influence the plot. Be bold and ask what you can or can't do; the worst that can happen is that we will say no. As plots in Save the Earth are not self resolving nor on a time limit they can evolve in many ways. Although some potential outcomes are given, they are little more than suggestion and can be changed by character action. What role you take is up to you.

The post is also open for players to plot and coordinate between one another.

---

General/OOC notes:
• Kira-mod will do a very intense internship during the first three weeks of March and thus not be very available. The events are set up so that this should not be an issue for game-play, but due to an unfortunate internet situation and the high workload, everything that cannot be pre-done like answers, reactions to player actions, apps etc will be slower than normal.
• Endgame is drawing closer! We are currently more or less on schedule, so the prediction for StE to end sometime during May still stands.

---

Events that occurred recently or are occurring currently:

• Media: The media and general public in Locke City and the US as a whole are now seeing the numbered as two groups: Victims of the situation who try to resolve things peacefully that it sees positively, and violent numbered that it sees negatively - though there are few numbered that they have slotted into either category. Worldwide, the opinion of the numbered is still mostly positive, and it gets better the further south or east a person goes.

• After days of searching for the missing children and capturing santas and grinches in Lapland, the numbered battled those whom they captured earlier on when they went berserk and broke out of their prison. At the same time, Toushirou (icy_heavens) and Dani (prismadestruction) told the network that they had found both the children and ...something else. Whatever it was that was frozen inside the giant block of ice (Torin (radiantchicken) knows more), the santas and grinches clearly tried to melt it out of it. StE's growing magical girl squad came to the rescue! They took care of evacuating all the kidnapped children and took out what grinches and santas they could find. Toushirou froze the block of ice over solidly once more, and the Finnish government was told about what the numbered had found. They are trying to put a kind of cold storage over it now. The government of Finland has also extended thanks to all numbered that came to Lapland to help and they are invited to a festive dinner with the president soon.

• Doppelgänger trouble is still ongoing! More info can be found here and here. Some of them are nice and some are anything but... some are easy to tell apart from their originals and with some its harder. Better watch out, numbered! At least they're just as confused about their existence as the originals?

---

Events occurring in the immediate future:

• Christmas Island. Some people, residents and tourists (including numbered tourists) alike, start acting strangely after trips into the jungle. They demolish houses, throw everything made by humans onto the boats in the harbour, some even ferry the material over to Indonesia and deposit it there before returning. It's as if they are driven by something to clean the island of human influence... Numbered who gained an odd behavioural pattern after visiting the island earlier in the year will feel compelled to join the ruckus.

And something seems to be growing in the jungle. Fungus. It spreads and spreads, thousands of tiny mushrooms springing up all over the island...

• Let's got to London! A pink will go up over the city on the 25th of February. Very shortly after, starting on the 27th, the tube will encounter first issues that nobody can truly explain. It is as if some hooligans decided to throw tons of long hair on the train tracks, enough to seriously hinder the subway traffic and damage train cars.

• On the 4th, 6:00pm CET, all doppelgängers and wolpertinger will feel that they need to be in Neuschwanstein castle in a specific room at the same time on the 5th. It feels like there is no other option, and they will do their best and even risk death, if necessary, to get there. Doppelgängers can inform the network/originals about this, they just won't know why they feel this urge.

All wolpertingers and doppelgänger who are in the assigned room (the Hall of the singers at 6:00 on the 26th will receive the following knowledge:

They are a part of a much larger being, Silent Swan. Their core is in hiding as a small statue of a swan, half a metre high and located in a corner of the room as decoration, but it is much older than the castle and has taken many similar forms over the years to fit in. They are much older than the castle, but (in the case of the doppelgängers) they weren't sentient before copying a numbered's information "a while ago".

Their core must be protected at all costs, as it protects something in turn - they aren't sure what exactly it protects, only that it is crucially important.

Again, doppelgängers are free to deal with this in whatever way is applicable.

• On the 10th, a festive dinner will be taking place in a fine restaurant in Rovaniemi, Lapland, Finland. Invited are all numbered who came to Finland to help with the kidnappings, no matter how much or little they ended up contributing.

• Not long after a pink light appears above Santarem on the 15th of March, there are rumours about General Miller sending troops there. And only a little bit later still, on the 20th, one can hear about Americans bombing the river, with devastating effects not only for nature... but also for the international climate. Things are getting very chilly very quickly when American hardliners declare that clearly this is a national defense strategy and Brazilian politicians declare that it is an attack on their country, and many other people have many opinions too. What is America - no, the world! - supposed to be defended against? Well: "The same beings that showed up in Locke and Las Vegas", official sources say. Citation needed.

---

Events potentially occurring in the immediate future:

• Pending the developments in the Neuschwanstein Area, another pink light may spring up above the Galapagos Island.

• If nothing happens quickly about the issue on Christmas Island, the Australian military will send units to take care of the issue and the island will be put under martial law on the 10th of March. They won't be effective past arresting those affected and thuus returning civil peace. If no numbered has done anything effective by the 22nd of March, a local will take it into their own hands to solve the issue.

---

Potential Echo Opportunities

• Encountering a ghost-like presence, a Vermini, a Vermedi, a Vermaxi, a doppelgänger, a wolpertinger, or a ghost wolpertinger for the first time grants one plot echo each.
• Using the teleporter for the first time will grant one plot echo.
• Seeing a pink light will grant one Tier 2 plot echo each.
• Touching the hair in the London tube will grant one plot echo.
• Being affected by the fungus in Christmas Island will grant one plot echo; people who already have a "weird status effect" from being on the island will receive such an echo upon returning there.


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

Comments

General questions

[theearth]

[alilyinthemoonslight]

Does anything significant happen if, say.

A doppelganger dies?

Purely hypothetical, you understand.

[theearth]

Purely hypothetically answered:

Unless their original has some form of immortality that would bring them back, they'll be dead.

And then dissolve into feathers a moment after they breathed their last breath. DRAMATICALLY.

[alilyinthemoonslight]

.........I don't think I could have asked for anything better. :3

[oncedevil]

I asked this late on the doppel plot so I'll ask here! It makes sense the doppelgangers have access to things that require passwords and account names like email and whatnot, but what about physical devices like phones? Thus would it be possible to contact each other through normal, non-numbered ways like phones and keep information from doppels?

OH YEAH AND SINCE WE'RE HERE. Do doppelgangers get echoes of their own, or only the originals?

[theearth]

Non-network devices can be used by doppels as they can by numbered and everyone else, which also means that they'll need their own phone and direct phone calls from A to B will be private to you and the NSA. So for the moment, non-numbered communication might really be the best idea.

Doppels can't get echoes of their own!

[oncedevil]

OH I KEEP FORGETTING TO ASK THIS physical items that have been echoed back, in this case Tony's sword, would the doppel have a copy of that or have to get the original's if he wanted to use it?

Inquiring for reasons :3c

[savethenpcs]

Items don't multiply; if the doppel can summon it through some magical means, the item that will be summoned will be the original's. And if they don't have magical means to do it, the doppel will have to steal the original's.

[elfstoned]

Now that Aaron's physical appearance has changed again, would his double's physical appearance change, too?

[theearth]

All physical changes that are due to echoes will reflect on the doppel (losing ten apparent years due to a differnet racial affiliation). All physical changes caused by something else (going to the hairdresser, etc) will not reflect on the doppel.

[savethenpcs]

Answer to the PM question (I can't access the main mod account right now, so I have to answer this way, sorry!): Anyone who looks like Aaron will be arrested, and anyone who looks like Aaron will be bailed out by the military as nobody can tell dopple and original apart...

Also in case I never answered to the PM before, the answers are all yes to that one.

[espigeonage]

If the Christmas Island is flown over by someone with really good eyesight, would he see the source of the mushrooms? Would they appear odd in any way?

[theearth]

The mushrooms seem to grow larger towards the center of the island (from the tiniest thing to the size of a (European) football), and there is one especially big one (this one about the size of a car) at the center of the whole thing. It'd take him a number of scouting trips to happen upon that center mushroom though.

Re: General questions

[scarlet_devil]

Would the doppels all eventually merge into Silent Swan?

[theearth]

It depends on if the players do anything before they get the chance to, really, it is one possibility. But this is strictly ooc knowledge, ICly neither originals nor dopples are aware of this possibility existing.

Re: General questions

[scarlet_devil]

Emi here is planning to get the closed clinic reopened again, since it'll be an easy source of blood and not because she cares about the poor at all, nope. Would it be possible for her to do it?

Re: General questions

[theearth]

She'll have to go through the entire application process for newly opening a clinic - legal stuff, finding staff, etc. A lot of the people who worked at the LSR might still be available, and I'll guess that it is a cause to easily find sponsors for, but it will take some work.

[stefanged]

This is super late, but what happens to dropped characters' doppelgangers? Do they stick around, or would they die when their original lost their Echoes?

[theearth]

They'll sit down next to the swan statue and if nobody decides to force food and drink on them slowly starve themselves to death. They won't let anyone remove them from the swan statue's side and fight nails and teeth if someone tries.

[stefanged]

... Oh man, well I guess I know what happened to doppel-Stefan now. :') Poor asshole's stuck taking care of his BFF, so thank you! I appreciate that bit of info.

[espigeonage]

I want Julien in on things somehow. He'll want to see London! And maybe he can try and investigate the source of the fungus.

[scarlet_devil]

If he needs someone with night vision to try to find the source, Emi can be pestered into it.

[espigeonage]

Could be fun!