Concerning endgame: The invasion and beyond

[theearth]

CONCERNING ENDGAME

For the final CR/plot meme, please go here
For the returnee registration, please go here.

SCHEDULE OF THE INVASION

A lot of things are happening at once. This is intentionally so - people are supposed to split up, so pick and choose! That you have to limit the involvement of your character to a reasonable amount is a rule.

Day 1: A snake! OOC date: 29th of April
Day 2: An invasion! OOC date: May 5th
Day 3.1: The invasion spills and a counterinvasion! IC date: May 10th
Day 3.2 - For those people that are GOING TO SPACE IC date: May 16th
Day 4: Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh IC date: May 22th-24th

More information and a description of the invasion can be found here.


THE INVASION'S OUTCOME

You are still welcome to submit this form for your characters, if you haven't done so yet. As per the poll's results, this will be decided OOCly. For the purpose of tallying resources to determine how well the numbered will do in defending Earth and maybe even overcoming the Enemy's mastermind, but also to coordinate what goes down, please comment to this thread using the following format:
<b>Character:</b> Name | <user name=journalname> <b>Capabilities:</b> List not only combat powers but also other powers/abilities that may be of interest (sometimes things that can do something are rather surprising!) and resources, be they money or people that they know or areas that they're familiar with, etc. <b>What role(s) would/could they play:</b> Combat or evacuation efforts, mission control or talking to enemies, political coordination/diplomacy or transporting troops, whatever comes to mind. Please also include if you have any preferences/anything already plotted out. <b>Location:</b> Not everyone can defend Locke City, or the Enemy will just invade everywhere else. Characters can of course retreat to another location or travel between places to give more of an element of surprise to their attacks, but <i>take into consideration that the invasion is scheduled to only last three <i>IC</i> days</i>, so there are logical restrictions to how much characters can move around. <b>Options for others:</b> You have five gundams but only on pilot? Your character can fly but not fight so they could carry a fighter around?Please put that here and check around what others might be offering
Mods may comment to your comment with alteration requests or options for how your cahracter could get involved, but if we don't that doesn't mean that we haven't seen it/are mean, it just means that it is fine as it is. We will try to let everyone do what they want, but please understand that we might shuffle things around a bit if too many people are trying to do the same thing. Please also refer to the FAQ below and the General Questions thread if you need more information to fill in the form.


WHAT WILL HAPPEN AFTER?

The successor game will start the day after StE closes. LexiL has volunteered to look into running a post-StE game in the spirit of this discussion. Please go to her thread here to discuss the nature of such a game further, she definitely would like everyone's opinions and also help, if someone would give it.


ONE LAST POLL: CHANGE OF THE SCHEDULE?

The start of the invasion has been moved to the 29th. Here is a poll that will be open until the 9th. The thing that is up to voting is if the start of the invasion (currently scheduled for the 15th) should be pushed back to the 19th or 28th. Everything up to the 11th would stay exactly the same; the only change is that there would be a bit more time to wrap up plot relevant threads before the invasion and to explore Tokyo.

During the invasion, every IC day will last multiple OOC days.


RETURNING CHARACTERS

As per the poll's results, dropped characters will be allowed to return for the invasion. If you wish to bring back a character or know someone who wants to bring their character back, please make sure that the character gets registered here.


STATE OF THE GUARDIAN ANIMALS

The continued existence of the Animals is crucial to how well defended the echo areas, which are the only gateways to Earth that the aliens have, are. An area with an entirely unharmed Animal will be easy to defend, an area with a deceased Animal will be near impossible to defend.

Wise Snake (Locke City): Both Wise Snake and the smaller snakes are deceased.
Crablobster (Las Vegas): Deceased.
Silent Swan (Neuschwanstein Area): Please tell us if the swan itself is still alive here. Silent Swan is unharmed. Wolpertinger and Doppelgänger are still alive for the most part.
Santa Claus (Lapland): The main Santa is unharmed, but a number of the minor santas/grinches are deceased.
Mushroom (Christmas Island): Alive, but rendered unable to fight due to a glass roof covering it. The minor fungi are still mostly alive.
Deep Blue (Galapagos Islands): Alive.
Cousin Itt (Central London): Damaged, but alive.
The Swarm (Santarem, Amazonas): Please tell us if damage has occurred here. Slightly decimated but mostly intact. Core alive.
Kappa (Tokyo City): Will be added once we know.
Jörmungandr (space): Alive.


FAQ
How strong are the enemy soldiers? Strong. Think something like a boss fight on medium to hard mode, for every single one of them (think Darth Vader to your Luke or a Balrog to your Gandalf). The Enemy's intelligence will adjust the strength of their soldiers to their opponent's to a degree and send stronger soldiers the way of stronger characters. Their strength lies in: Speed, durability, strength and one special power - that can be superspeed or telekinesis or any other superpower.
Can the enemy soldiers combat my special power X? Yes and no. They come in groups of hundred, and every group has a different ability. If your character is lucky, they will not immediately run into a group whose abilities negates your character's special ability X, but they are coordinated well and will send a group who can to their place as soon as they figure it out. Example: Your character can summon ghosts that are invincible because they are intangible. After that registers with the Enemy's troops, they'll send an unit your character's way that can make intangible things tangible, so after the ghosts took out a number of soldiers they'll suddenly encounter opponents who can kill them.
My character can go to space!/Can I my character fight the spaceships? EXCELLENT. Once Jörmungandr has shown up, they will able to fly up in a straight line until they hit the outer parts of the atmosphere and then fly all the way around the planet at that altitude. They should however be careful to not leave the echo boundaries. And yes, they can fight the spaceships. The ships are armed! Their guns are strong enough to hurt the serpent in the sky (which has a similarly hard to pierce hide as Wise Snake and the Crablobster). On the flip side, the spaceships are as stable as an average Star Trek/Star Wars/etc ship with its shields down. Good metal, but nothing supernatural.
How will the Animals (and their smaller parts, like doppelgänger, santas and wolpertingers) react to my character? Not at all. They battle the Enemy's troops without paying attention to what they might wreck or kill in the way, but won't attack anyonething from Earth, either.
• What will doppelgängers do once the invasion starts? Once the invasion happens, the Silent Swan part will take over the doppelgänger's brains/actions insofar as they will see only one goal: Defend Earth, and specifically the Neuschwanstein echo boundary, at all cost. What the rest of their personality does with that goal is up to the players. This means that they should be found in the Neuschwanstein area as that is what their purpose is, but there is a bit wiggle room if there are other factors (mind control by a third source, being imprisoned, etc).
Can my character talk to the invaders? Yes! Some may even express regret about their wrecking havoc, but do it anyway, because staying true to their orders conquers all other considerations.
RETURNEES - Will my character receive any echoes upon having their echoes return? No! BUT they will witness Jörmungandr's pink light, so they can have a tier 2 right upon entering the game. They can also receive recurrence echoes throughout the invasion. Please request your character's echoes on the echo page just like you did while they were in the game!


Please direct questions regarding any of the above to the thread below and not the post in general. Please do not use this post for plotting among yourselves and go to the final CR/plot meme instead.

Comments

Worldbuilding

[evowhisperer]

There is a plurk about this thread, and people have been coming up with worldbuilding ideas! Here's a summary of some things people have said or pointed out about a post-endgame Earth:

-How apocalyptic is 'sort of apocalyptic'? People are kicking around a ballpark estimate of 1/5th of the world's population dead, due to the new cancer and the invasion and everything.
-On a scale of 'Godzilla demolished tokyo but the rest of the world is fine' being 1 and 'the walking dead' being 10, how screwed is the world? It looks like everyone's leaning towards a 6, with wastelands and completely normal zones here and there.
-Technology: human infrastructure is actually going to be enormously intact. Everything in orbit around the earth has probably been destroyed (specifically, satellites), but aside from communication (which will have to fall back to landlines and radio for a while), a lot of things should survive as normal.
-There was passing mention of the rise of megacorporations, a la ShadowRun.

[alilyinthemoonslight]

As far as my personal opinion goes on, "level of apocalyptic" it needs to be able to still have some sense of "fun" even with dire situations overhanging. Get TOO dire in the setting, and I think that drives away some of the entertaining things about the characters and world setting in the first place. There still needs to be room for the lighter side of things, even in light of a serious atmosphere.

Of course, still consequence and new looming threats, but! The SOL options shouldn't be lost, and I think there are ways to do it without making it grimdark as all get out. (Plus, that leans towards some degree of making it accessible and appealing to new potential players, as well.)

If anything, I think even using the word "apocalyptic" for even for how it's been described is very much a misnomer, and that alone can be a turn off for some (as this thread has already displayed once.)

That's my two cents, though. :)

[dead_black_eyes]

I'm super glad that these points came up because in sharpening the focus of the new game's tone and direction, I'm much happier with "post-war" than "apocalyptic." Not that I have any sort of problem with apocalyptic! It's just misleading given what we've ultimately begun to settle on. I'm committed to balancing interest and fun and ensuring that these characters aren't too stressed and broken in their new situation, so rest assured that is absolutely a priority. Hence, "post-war" is my new jam.

As always, your two cents is very valuable to me. :D

[dead_black_eyes]

Eek! This is really useful and I appreciate you making it succinct this way like whoa. Thank you. I've added a few other changes that have cropped up in the last day or so!

-The word "apocalyptic" is one that conjures a lot of vivid and intense imagery. I think that people envision this by default, which is awesome... but even if some of the world will look that way, the locales we'll be primarily playing with are probably leaning more toward this and this, with some scary diseases and creatures in the mix. It's still bleak but certainly not apocalyptic as most people seem to envision it, so I'd like to clarify that for those who are just tuning in now. "Post-war" is how I'd like to brand the game from here forward.

-Globally, a 6 is probably a really good average. Everyone will be affected to at least some degree, but many places will be considered "safe", and not just "safer", allowing for some lighthearted slice of life to play out as characters continue their personal arcs (some of which are just now beginning to get off the ground in STE and deserve room to further grow and develop. Weddings, people.)

-Technology is admittedly my weak point and I am the most grateful to anyone who can realistically imagine what we'd be looking at in this setting for things like internet, satellites and so forth. (Seriously, to me electricity is basically magic. How do circuits?) I like the idea of a lot of things surviving as normal, specifically radio and landlines, especially after a year's time to reestablish.

-The megacorporations concept is something I'd like to handle carefully if we can, on kind of a case-by-case basis. If we do go this route, we need to ensure that there's a clear understanding between players that it's not free reign to go power crazy and godmode over everyone with teams of NPCs. There are fantastic villain and even hero possibilities there but out of fairness to players I feel like some hard lines need to be drawn in terms of how the megacorps will affect the game as a whole and who can play NPCs. I STILL NEED TO FIGURE THESE OUT but I'm sure that eventually we can come up with a system for implementing these. :D

[scarlet_devil]

Yeah, Emilia's family will likely be involved with their own megacorp.

[dead_black_eyes]

Yeah, this is an aspect of the new game that the mod team will need to figure out, given that it poses a very real possibility for players to have unfair advantages over other players. What I'm thinking is that I'll want to implement a special app for incoming or existing characters detailing their plans for their "megacorp", capital and connections, how they obtained (or plan to) obtain it, and most importantly, how it will involve other players, since that's a crucial aspect of any RPG. As the point of this setting is to challenge superpowered players who get to keep their echoes, I'm wary to greenlight anything that entails this level of in-game power and influence at this very early point.

[scarlet_devil]

Yeah, how far is too far when it comes to this? I like the idea of a Numbered friendly megacorp though.

[dead_black_eyes]

Ultimately, I think the question isn't really "how far is too far", so much as "how will this benefit the game's plot and get others excited and involved," as well as how charismatic and well-suited to leadership a character is. Since megacorporations are not a part of STE at this time, they won't just spring out of the woodwork, and interested players will essentially need to prove that they have the energy and ability to use a megacorporation to make the game more fun for everyone. Given that by their very nature there can't be megacorporations everywhere, we'd need to be pretty selective about who gets to run one. For existing characters who have been a part of STE for a long time, this will likely be based on their existing influence and track record (how many friends do they have? Are their friends powerful? Wealthy? Limited only to NPCs? Is there anyone who would be willing to form a partnership with them? Are there any characters who are fiercely loyal or devoted to them? What about their enemies? Criminal record?), and for new characters it would be a little more lenient since they have not had months to build that rapport.

[scarlet_devil]

Ah yes, Emi for instance has some influence herself. She'll talk to Winter and even Saretha about this kind of thing.

[purestambition]

Uhhhhh.

There's no version of things there in which Saretha actually helps Emilia in that situation. Especially given she's shown mistrust of her in the past, and she's done very little to dissuade that.

I'd really rather you did not speak on what my character is going to provide for yours without even so much as a word in my direction.

[dead_black_eyes]

Emi's free to talk about it IC to anyone she wants, but right now you're talking to a moderator of the new game OOC about a mechanic that I've stated multiple times I want to approach carefully. The shortness of your answers makes it difficult to tell how much of what I'm saying is being understood, so I apologize if I'm off the mark, but I feel like I must not be communicating effectively what kind of approach to megacorps I want to see in 2.0.

Above all, megacorps need to be selfless and cooperative. That means having a clear idea of what it is and what it's for even when conceptualizing that your character might want one. It means getting other players excited about them, and it means a lot of work IC and OOC to keep plots rolling. By this point I feel like a character player who really wants this for the right reasons would have offered more than 2 sentence responses or spoken to other players to get some brainstorming going; all I'm really getting from this is that Emi wants to run a company, and it raises a lot of questions. The ones I've asked have been answered vaguely or not at all. (For example, I want to know more about her influence. You say she has it, but what PCs does she know who would say "how high" if she said "jump?" Is she respected or does she merely kind of scare people? How do characters who deeply respect and value life react to the fact that she has killed recently? Did you speak with the players whose characters you are mentioning, or are you assuming that they would want to help her?)

I know it's an early point and I've kept stressing that, but I feel like I also really need to stress that for me to even consider handing over this kind of responsibility to a player they need to offer plot possibilities and a way to involve other characters, and they need to communicate that further than briefly and repeatedly ascertaining that their character would/could/should run a megacorp. They need to do it without being spoonfed what to do, and they need to communicate with others continually and effectively in the interest of bettering an entire game and not just a character. My frank opinion is that Emi's not well-suited to this type of role, and that it would take a lot of mental gymnastics to justify it when you've offered no kind of reassurance or evidence, just... continually assuming that you'll find a way to get Emi what you want to get her. It was a big red flag for me when you asked "how far is too far," because pushing boundaries and getting away with whatever is still technically within the rules isn't what this is about. It's about communication and mutual respect and I feel like you need to prioritize these before insisting on this type of role for your character.

[scarlet_devil]

Uh, I didn't mean to imply Emi would be in any leadership role when she's too young. Or mean to put things the way I did.

[dead_black_eyes]

Again, your answers have been very brief and uninformative, and for that reason what you're implying is very difficult to discern. You said that Emi's family "will likely" be involved in their own megacorp, and then that Emi herself is influential, so hopefully you can understand the confusion there. Now that it's clarified, I want to offer a few reasons why this should not happen.

-"Emi's family", sans Emi, are player-controlled NPCs we've seen little of up to this point in the game. You were considering killing most of them in endgame less than a week ago on plurk, so I feel like your concept for their future is a little bit uncertain. Even if it was set in stone and their roles were well-defined and legitimately influential, player-controlled NPCs are too tenuous to run a big operation. If the character you apped is too young or green to run a corporation by your own judgment, then it shouldn't even be on the table.

-A leadership role is exactly what running a megacorporation would entail, both IC and OOC. If this isn't something that interests your character or is possible for them, then it's a step back rather than forward in terms of persuasive arguments.

-All of this aside, when I use the word "respect" it goes far beyond tone or the way things are stated. Please talk to players about this kind of thing, as it's clear that the bead you've got drawn on some of Emi's CR isn't what you thought it was.