Plot Post for January 4th!

[theearth]

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.





Before we begin the usual rundown of the current state of affairs,


Save the Earth is NEARING THE END OF SEASON ONE.


The event that will mark the our first season’s end will occur once two conditions are met:

1. Thunder Corp. completes their drilling below Tuning Towers, which is in place for and could happen as early as the end of this month.

2. The "alien" dwelling in the farmhouse outside of the city proper is confronted.

The results of the reconnaissance mission to the farmhouse led by Nick Burkhardt (detectivetroll) that occurred on the 21st of this month have been passed to relevant parties; it is up to them when/how/how much of that information to share in-game. The decision of when to make the move to bring Season 1 to a close is in player hands: Season 1 will not end until the players invade the farmhouse and confront the creature inside.

When Thunder Corp reaches Target 1, the giant vein of pink stone underneath the city, the results will be catastrophic. A snake will rise out of the ground, causing heavy damage in the main business district of Locke City. It is made of pink stone, hundreds of meters long, and has two small back legs like certain prehistoric snakes once did. When this happens, the players have a couple of options. One, you can allow the alien in the farmhouse to complete its mission, blowing itself up to destroy the snake and causing severe collateral damage within the city. Two, you can destroy both the snake and the alien yourselves. The snake does not speak, and will seek to destroy the surrounding area. Capturing or otherwise incapacitating the snake will prove impossible and result only in the snake struggling and destroying more of the surrounding area, though you are welcome to try.

There will be a specific thread in the comments of this post for players to describe their powers. How strong are you by now? What abilities do you have access to? This will help us determine how the Season 1 finale’s battle will run.

The battle and death of Target 1 and the alien will trigger Season 2. Across the world, in twelve places, strange pink glows will appear below the earth one by one. The main objective of Season 2 will be for the player characters to visit these locations and protect the pink-stone creatures that lie below, for it is these creatures that are keeping the really strong aliens from storming Earth. Echoes will be kept outside of Locke City, allowing the characters to travel. Participation in these plots will be voluntary; the characters will still have the option of attempting to keep their lives as ordinary as possible.

In fact, they’ll have very good reasons to. The battle at Tuning Towers will draw public attention. The numbers club will still be able to operate in secrecy, but the public will now know that strange, impossible things are happening in Locke City. Whether the public sees you as heroic, villainous, or just dangerous will be an important element of Season 2.

We recommend that players take into account these upcoming changes and complete all subplots that would be difficult to run in Season 2 before any plans are put into motion to confront the farmhouse alien.

We will be editing the game information to reflect that we’re approaching a change in season for the benefit of players considering entering the game at this point - and we will, when interest comes up in returning to the farmhouse, request check-ins to confirm that moving on to the next season will not be leaving anyone behind!

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Events occurring currently:

• Blood Key gang activity is down. Their numbers have been reduced and violent incidents are less frequent, but they’re still active in the area surrounding the Dead District. They are twice as strong and fast as an ordinary human, and their senses are supernaturally keen. In addition, they’re heavily armed and well supplied.

• Speaking of the Dead District, Thunder Corp’s construction project is progressing remarkably quickly. A building has taken shape: indeed, it looks nearly complete. It resembles the plans proposed by ThunderCorp...mostly. Security around it is tight. In fact, if you get too close, you risk an encounter with the Blood Keys.

• There are still mobile and dangerous snake statues in the less-used subway tunnels. They emit similar buzzing to what was felt around Tuning Towers, and confronting them will leave reincarnates with a hard-to-shake feeling that no matter what, fighting the snakes will result in a loss. They can, however, be destroyed - but bearing in mind that some of the disused subway areas are below active parts of the city and what happened in the first three moving statues’ haunting grounds, any interest in eradicating them should be gone into carefully.

• Finally, Detective Sherman and his circle of police will be on the lookout for unusual activity and continue to make illegal arrests. If you feel your character might have drawn police attention, want them arrested, and have not been contacted by us yet, let us know in the comments. An arrest will have one of three results: your character can either cooperate, offer Sherman names/information about other reincarnates and be released but kept under police surveillance; be broken out by reincarnates or discuss another escape method with the mods; or disappear under mysterious circumstances. In the second circumstance, your character will need to go into hiding unless they can successfully conceal their identity from Detective Sherman. Hiding is not necessarily permanent, but it may be long-term, depending on later actions from PCs.

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Events occurring in the immediate future:

• Thunder Corp will complete its construction project in the Dead District. Well, officially it’s incomplete, but there’s no sign of continued construction. No unauthorized personnel will be allowed inside, despite ThunderCorp’s earlier promises that the compound would be a combination business center/apartment complex/shopping center. It’s just not open yet. Really.

• David Proud is still being a lunatic (with increasing amounts of laughing) at Elian Price’s (wastingtime) house. PCs are encouraged to question him with regards to the snake statues underground.

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Events potentially occurring in the immediate future:

• An organized assault on the farmhouse will take place eventually; when depends on the players.

• ThunderCorp will complete its giant machine in the basement of Tuning Towers and begin drilling down toward the snake.

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Potential Echo Opportunities

• Encountering a cybernetically-altered member of the Blood Keys or a snake statue below ground for the first time grant one Echo each. Also, anyone who sees something unusual at the farmhouse will trigger one plot Echo. As always, canon reoccurrences grant related Echoes!

• ADDENDUM: Proximity to Wise Snake will grant one Tier 2 Echo independent of the monthly limit for Tier 2 Echoes.


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

Comments

GENERAL QUESTIONS

[theearth]

[shiromadoushi]

If Bakura were to send Diabound invisibly to check out the structure in the Dead District, would he find anything of interest or is it just a building?

[theearth]

Only the building, at this time - and possibly lurking Blood Keys, but that's effectively a constant!

[argents]

this will be relevant to the below section should it get approved but -- encountering the giant snake, enough to echo back a proper sized gundam to fight back or no?

[theearth]

An enormous threat, an enormous regain - Banagher would indeed be able to Echo a full-sized Gundam all at once on seeing Wise Snake!

Re: GENERAL QUESTIONS

[not_good_not_wicked]

So wait I thought this post was us confronting the alien in the farm house. What is going on there?

[theearth]

That post is, at this time, reconnaissance, in preparation for fighting the alien - engagement with the alien face-to-face is not expected to occur until a later visit.

Re: GENERAL QUESTIONS

[adorabastard]

If a character has a very high resistance to mind-control and whatnot, would the snake statues still leave them with the feeling that fighting them is useless / will result in a loss?

[theearth]

Psychic or other mental resistance will allow characters to be less- to not-influenced by the suggestion that the snake statues give off!

Re: GENERAL QUESTIONS

[needsmorezippers]

OK this is sort of what I meant in plurk but a.) to post it here b.) to ask the question I actually meant:

Will there still be plot points in Locke City in Season 2, or will the only real plot be happening elsewhere?

[twopercent]

So the new construction in the Dead District looks 'mostly' like the plans.... what's different? And is it possible to track down whoever's been supplying the Blood Keys? (I mean, I think there's some natural assumptions that people could make there, but confirming it would be useful.)

Re: GENERAL QUESTIONS

[predestinarianism]

If Evelyn were to regain her prophetic dreams (if this is a thing she'd be able to get from a snake statue or Blood Key encounter!), is it okay for her to have very vague symbolic dreams about Final Boss? Something as vague as "the ground opens up and pink light engulfs everything"!

Re: GENERAL QUESTIONS

[strikeraid]

Blood Key instructions! Are they expecting anything, or is this gonna blindside them? Business as usual? Any new deals?

so many questions sorry

[centurian]

So...

What exactly would happen if Gerald begins to look into ThunderCorp's dealings, how much shady stuff would he find? Would there be implied connections to police, unethical practices, red herrings, and the like?

Also, on a related note... DOES THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT/Higher ups in national agencies like the CIA and FBI know anything? Just to know how stonewalled he'd be with all this stuff.

Furthermore, would Sherman and Edwards/the other police want to talk to a Federal Agent about STUFF that's been going on it the city at all?

[keywarding]

So Wise Snake-sama is going to provide very large echoes, for Holly who doesn't necessarily have any one large item or skill to echo back, would she be able to echo back a few of her Sakura cards upon Wise Snake-sama's arrival?

Specifically I'm thinking of her elemental cards. The Firey, Watery, Earthy & Windy, they are all apart of the major cards and are all the most powerful of her deck. I would love for her to get them all back at once and maybe a push for her power to be able to use at least two of them in quick succession.

SO TO MY QUESTION, would this be possible or is that considered to big for Snake-sama echoes?

[healspec]

So there's going to be a HIGHLY PUBLIC battle against a giant snake in the middle of downtown, yes? I imagine there will be news vans, and that some reincarnates may be caught on video doing impossible shit.

Can we assume media attention for our characters if desired? And if they DO get media attention, how would that affect the way the cops deal with them?

[peacefulwinter]

I'll hold further questions on Season 2 until we get closer to it, but since I'm starting to work out who's staying where, it's relevant now: What are the odds that Winter could argue sending a small group(s) of numbered out to the various combat zones of Season 2 and call it independent study? Leadership, teamwork, navigation, problem-solving, there are a million ways she could pitch it, and I'm wondering how likely - especially given the probable state of affairs, and the fact that I'm relatively certain Winter will make damn sure everyone knows she was out there - the teachers would be to say yes, either because they actually think it's worth something, or as an excuse to get a bunch of problems waiting to happen out of their hair.

[espigeonage]

The Blood Keys have a warehouse where they keep the things they stole, right? If characters poked around, not necessarily Julien, what kind of security would there be? What might be found?

I mentioned it in abilities/skills and a little farther down, but Julien's got bird hearing, and birds and other animals can often hear earthquakes coming hours before they hit. The giant snake is closer to the surface than... other earthquake causes. Would it be possible for Julien to hear it (he'd believe it was "just" a quake) say fifteen minutes prior, and alert the network/try and set off an evacuation? Which might not do as much good as he'd hope.

Re: GENERAL QUESTIONS

[hollowleg]

HEY MODS. I need to arrange an arrest. :3a http://saveyourselves.dreamwidth.org/155535.html?thread=4240271#cmt4240271

[dododo]

This doesn't really have much to do with this specific post and is more of a general Echo thing but. Since regeneration happens due to dying, would it be legitimate for him to get that ability back from that sensation of dying? And it would, of course, kick in before he was actually dead so he ends up regenerating instead.

Also, when I finally get to adding the interior to the TARDIS, gets him the key and the knowledge on how to fly it, would he be able to use it at all? I wouldn't expect him to be able to time travel, but maybe travel at least a limited distance?

[idealofhope]

I have a question that sort of ties into the tier 2 that comes with confronting the Big Snake (hereafter referred to as Cobra Commander). Calvin here hasn't gotten involved in anything yet and therefore doesn't have any real echoes of note. All of Clark's powers come from one thing, his kryptonian physiology, they're just applied in different ways. Would it be better to echo back the individual abilities one at a time or echo back, like, a reduced level of his physiology to give him low levels of most of his suite of powers and use subsequent echoes to make his body more kryptonian? He also hasn't gotten involved with the blood keys or the snake statues, so echoes from either of those would probably be best used to set up the tier 2, I imagine.

Apologies if it's weird to ask for advice on Echoes like this, I just wanna make sure I do this right.

[detectivetroll]

Sorry this is a little late, but a few questions I thought of!

Mostly, re: the farmhouse investigation - is there going to be any fallout from that with the corrupt cops? Increased security, anything moved, investigation into who the hell broke into the farmhouse, that kind of thing? I'm assuming they've guessed it was numbers members that broke in, but would there be any speculation on how they found out about the farmhouse? And would Nick be allowed to be in on any investigation into that?

This is mostly for my personal reference, but would it be safe to assume that Nick is on pretty good terms with Sherman by now? Is there anything more that Nick'd know about Sherman - not just plot info, but stuff about Sherman's past, personality, likes/dislikes, habits, that kind of thing?

And lastly, is there any more information that Nick can find out about the alien, the "monster," or the corrupt cops before the end of Season 1? This won't really have much affect ICly, since he'll be sticking undercover and still trying to get close to Sherman and as deep into the corruption as he can get, but I'm curious OOC.

[testsonseashells]

will anything at the farmhouse trigger any plot echoes?

[siesinddasessen]

Are there any high abandoned buildings in the dead district, say, 12 floor or higher? And would blood keys follow a person into those buildings and all the way up?

Re: GENERAL QUESTIONS

[youngestone]

Super late but: can the snakes underground give tier two Echos as well? I'm only asking because last month I was able to get a tier two from having Kils run into the Blood Keys before the clinic.