When I started this thing, I wasn't planning on letting folks know the whole score from the get-go. I was planning on taking on the bulk of writing this whole sodding arc on my own, with a handful of trusted comrades helping out.

This, as it turns out, was a bad plan.

I can't do this thing on my own. I don't have the time or the energy. I'm already falling waaay behind schedule with it. And so, I'm going to lay out the idea of this arc for everyone to see. You can debate it, fine-tune it, and by all means, help write it as your fancy takes you.

Here was the original full arc outline:

Part 1: In whatever passes for Directive HQ. They decide that this overgrown turkey has got to go, because he's effectively got an India Syndrome thing running right in the good ol' U. S. of A. They decide to kill him. -DONE

Part 2: Second scene is the lure. Someone trustworthy - possibly Sheriff WhiteElk - tells Waki that there's going to be trouble at the Wounded Knee memorial, that some damned group of whites is planning a celebration in recognition of the aquittal of the soldier who started the whole thing. Waki takes the bait and goes. -DONE

Part 3: Waki dies horribly when he shows up at an empty Wounded Knee and the Directive pound him to freakin' death with their orbital gun. It takes a number of shots, it's brutal, and by the end of it, I'm hoping to have some readers actually feeling sorry for him. -DONE

Part 3.5: This is "Wreckin' Crew", which I didn't plan on, but damn if it isn't a great way to take out the Directive's orbital bangstick... something that really, really needs to happen anyway. Thank you, Revenant!!! -IN PROGRESS

Part 4: Reaction of the Faithful. The young braves who idolized him dance the Ghost Dance, and go on the warpath.

Part 5: "Not our problem". The Directive, having rid themselves of the menace of Wakinyan, hands the riots off to a stunned US .gov, saying in effect, "We took care of the nova; the baselines are your problem."

Part 6: In rides the cavalry. The governor, facing riot/rebellion, calls out the South Dakota Nat. Guard. Within hours, they are Federalized by Washington, and a helluva conflict looms.

Part 7: The offer. Ptesan-Wi, who is just recovering from the shock of Waki's death, realizes what is about to happen... and moves to shut it down. Tells the faithful that while Wakinyan is gone, she still lives, and that the path they are choosing for themselves will lead them only to final loss. She contacts the .gov, and makes an offer to negotiate a peace.

Part 8: General debate and distrust and whatnot, eventually steering toward talks.

Part 9: a negotiated peace. Because of their connections with the Directive, the .gov is eager to bury this PR nightmare... and PW offers them peace in trade for actually enforcing the still-in-place but often-violated peace treaty from the 1870s: the Black Hills - all of them - belong to the People. The .gov agrees to expand the reservation to include the historic territory and grants tribal law enforcement the right to actually enforce the law against non-tribal violators on the reservations (a major sticking point with the tribes for decades), she sells it to the Lakota (with all but a small handful of the braves accepting), and there's a peace ceremony, using the White Buffalo Pipe she crafted last year.

That's it. The arc as a whole gives Wakinyan a death that is memorable (I think this has been accomplished) and a legacy, takes out the Directive's ludicrous gun as well as a bit of their influence with the US .gov, and gives the very first little starting seeds to the independent Indian Nation from Trinity.

I am perfectly happy with ANYONE jumping in and kicking off Parts 4 and 5 at this point; both should probably be backdated to a few days after Wakinyan's death.

I'm also perfectly happy to discuss ways to improve on this planned arc. It's the first time I've tried to do anything like this, it's a freakin' huge undertaking, and I'm probably missing a half-dozen things (Part 3.5 is an excellent example).

Sounds huge. But honestly I don't see any reason that 6, 7, 8, and 9 couldn't be handled in a wrap up fashion.

But, question. Waki got gacked because he's a pain-in-the-ass India-Syndrome having butthead of a nova right? Then howcome Pissy Wi wasn't also gacked?

I'm guessing PW didn't NEED an Orbital Rail Gun to kill, so they figure they can control if the situation needs it?

Trooper,

Bad assessment by the Directive Psych types. They tagged PW as a follower-type caught up in the whole Waki mystique (which is only partially correct), and reasoned that offing Waki would yank the rug out from under her, undermining the whole cult. Now mind you, had she gone with Waki to Wounded Knee, they would have been fine with killing her, but as-is, it would have been a major pain to retarget the thing a couple hundred miles (and by that time, Sean & Co. had her outta there).

Was anyone planning on taking any of these parts to work on? No one's said anything in over 2 weeks.

If not, I'm going to try to get something written on Part 4 - the Reaction of the Faithful. I doubt I'll be able to match the bar set by Wargear with Waki's death, but what the heck.

Yay movement!!!

I'm afraid I'm not up to driving the car, but I'll push if that helps.

Two honest questions, since I've been out of the loop on this.

1: Is there verifiable evidence of Wakinyan waiving character contract for this. I want to see the dotted i's and t's on this just to make sure everything is legit. (Not stopping ya, if there ever was a way to go... this would be it.)

2: Why would have the Directive even used the "god rod" gun? Could they have just called Jager in on this? He alone would have done this no muss, no fuss.

That is all.

I can see two reasons for this, personally.

1. Dramatics. Getting shot to death by a giant phallic "death ray" from space is just dramatically cool.

2. Do you really want to give another player character the honor of bumping you off? If the idea is to focus on the death of a PC then having another PC do the deed has the potential of shifting the spotlight off the vitim and onto the killer.

That's my take on it at any rate.

How are you even involved in this? And why do you care? If Kris had a problem with his fav character being blasted to smithereens he'd be hollering righteous fuck about it, ya think?

Endeavor,

1. You're welcome to contact Kris and ask him yourself. The vast majority of how this would go down was worked out between him and I via Private Chat and Instant Messenger.

Indeed, the original plan had been for him to write the death scene himself; unfortunately, Real Life constraints came into play, and he handed it off to me (and then I got help on the actual "kill-post" from Wargear, who's a lot better at that sort of thing than I am).

2. Why the Orbital Plot Device, er, KEI Weapon rather than Jager? Because (1) it is under the Directive's control, and Jager is not, (2) it finally gave N!Prime the opportunity to get rid of said Plot Device, (3) it kicks off the opportunity for some excellent "fall out from the incident" stuff (some of which is in the works, and it's a shame that N!Prime has been so sluggish lately), and (4) because I wanted to give Wakinyan a grand and memorable death scene, something that would have a lasting impact on the Lakota and on the novas of N!Prime.

Hope that helps.

- Jess

I think that taking out the OMEN Satellite is a bad idea. Here's why.

First, I don't have the Trinity book on hand since I'm writing this at work, but I'm fairly sure I saw reference to the OMEN system during the Aberrant War. If the system is still around during the Aberrant War, taking it out now creates a problem for canon. Not an irreconcilable problem, but a problem.

Ignoring that, I don't buy the argument that it's ridiculous or abusive. It's been fired, to my knowledge, twice. The first being in Where Heaven Ends, the second being now with Waki's death. The first time was a canon event, and we had no control over its firing; the second occurred because Waki was going to die and it was as good a way as any. The harm caused by such a device to players and characters on N!Prime seems decidedly minimal, especially since consent means you don't have to be there when the slug hits.

You can make an argument that it's ridiculous, but that I don't agree with - the Directive's remit is developing ways to stop novas that are dangerous and a threat to others, and with the inflated 2017 power levels they are inevitably going to develop something like this. You can also make an argument that it's illegal, but that ignores that Utopia and other influential organizations have been lobbying for laws that play to their strengths for the past fifteen to twenty years. It's not out of the question to think that , say, DeVries has lobbied to have such weapons allowed under law - I recall one of Wargear's fictions having her controlling a similar weapon.

But more than that, I believe that what the weapon gives the 2017 continuity is more than it takes away, and I would prefer a world that has such a device in it. What the device gives us, is conflict - and conflict is key to drama.

A tangent. A while back, after Sylvan's husband was killed, I wrote a story in which the Church of the Michael Archangel decides to strike at the nova menace elsewhere, illustrating the problem with revenge killings - that they tend to spill over onto people only tangentially related to the initial conflict. It wasn't one of my best, but earnestly, it was all right. It gave me story material - it was a solid Act 1 and I'm quite happy with follow up fictions where Roxanne comes to terms with her grief. One of the criticisms of the story that was bandied about, in character and out of character, is that the Church of the Michael Archangel was not that well co-ordinated and not that well-equipped. That they should be less of a threat.

I couldn't understand that. Why would anyone want their character's antagonist - and the COMA is every nova's antagonist - to be less of a challenge, less of a threat? A conflict that's easily solved doesn't make for compelling drama. You can write scene after scene where the COMA hicks shoot ineffectively at your nova while your nova just laughs it all off, but that's not drama, that's action porn. Or, if you want to be charitable, that's an establishing scene where we find out how muey badass your character is before the real challenge shows up.

In Aberrant, your character essentially has it made. Many people go out of their way not to act against your interests, or at the very least to make sure your interests coincide with theirs. Conflict is tough to find under such circumstances, mostly coming from other novas, which can get repetitive, not to mention cause sources of real-life drama when the antagonist for you turns out to be the protagonist for someone else. (And while drama's great on the page, I would prefer to keep it out of the chatroom.) Having other sources of conflict - such as the Church of Michael Archangel, or the Directive - translates into a wider variety of conflicts. And those conflicts can only be meaningful if they have a chance to harm your character in some way, and to do that, people like the Directive need tools like the OMEN. Otherwise, all they'll ever be are those schmucks whose flailing just illustrate how bad-ass you are.

I also think that removing a part of the game world is bad for the other players in the world who might want to tell stories involving that thing. Yes, we're off the map canon-wise, although we do still have some signposts - we know OMEN is still around in the Aberrant War, and we know Project Utopia is. However, I think that the benefits of filling in this gap in canon - writing the middle story, which is the least fun part of telling any story - are outweighed by the chief detriment of having to tell newbies about all the things that we've changed. I'm all in favor of putting things on the board - as before, when I took something put into play by other players and ran with it - but I am less in favor of taking them off the board, since it's easier to ignore something that someone else added, than to ignore something that someone else took away.

Anything that creates a barrier to new talent is bad for the website, since it thrives on its player base. I say this as someone who has at times grown mighty frustrated with having to keep track of various stories on the website and how they affected canon, and with a couple of friends who don't visit here any more because they felt the environment was newbie-hostile. The Aberrant War doesn't start for another few decades, real time - there's no real need to work towards it now when there's other stories to be told, when it'll create more mandatory reading material to scare new players off. This is at the end of the day, entertainment, and the more a new player has to work at it, the more it seems like work.

So I say that we keep the OMEN - even if this particular satellite is taken out, it's not like there can't be more. It's not like your character has to be hit by one unless you want them to, and it strikes me as unfair to eliminate something that makes conflict with the Directive more compelling, or that can be used in many more stories to come.

All of that said, I'm great with the rest of the synopsis of the story. It uses what could be a throwaway death as the impetus for what looks to be a more compelling story about a woman putting aside her private grief for the greater good, and trying to take something bad and turn it into something good. The conflicts are well laid out and have a logical progression. I would prefer it if the Directive were a bit less mustache-twirly and had a better cover story in place, but I'm sure people would prefer it if in my stories, Elites were more than soulless money-grubbing thugs and that the Teragen were more mature than the average mongoloid schoolyard bully.

That's it for now.

Actually, my understanding is that what is in operation at the time of the Aberrant War is not the Directive-created orbital KEI, but rather derivative (and advanced) orbital systems under national control. Just a minor point, but I think an important one.

The biggest problem of this gadget has never been that it is deadly to the PCs. Rather, it's that the nations of the world let some effectively unregulated organization keep an orbital death-toy zipping around after it pummelled Ibiza; that detail has always strained the seams of credulity.

It was passed along to me that my consent might be needed for what happened.

The story of Wakinyan's death as far as I am concerned is approved by myself. There has been no noncannon vote on it so it has obviously been approved by N!prime as a whole.

If you need reasons for this happening I posted it five months ago and I am pretty sure most read it.

Part 4 is posted - or in progress depending.

I hope everyone likes it. Is anyone volunteering for any of the other parts?


And who's up in Echoes?

Well, further bloodshed is pretty much guarunteed at this point. The Lakota went out and BUTCHERED several dozen civilians by the look of it.
The National Guard for South Dakota and the surrounding states are being called out. Federal assistance (read elements of one Airmobile division, Ranger Battalions, and Delta as well as an alphabet soup of others) is on the way in a day or two at most.

Whatever the indian's honest grievences were, they should be lost in the spilling of blood. This should not end well at all.

In my opinion, anyway.

I think either Sean or Preston is up in Echoes.

Yes, this is a mess of the First Magnitude. Though it could have been far worse.

OK, the Directive just washed their hands of the mess, which has burbled over a hot August weekend. Anyone care to write the Governor calling out the Guard, and perhaps some of the initial contact by said Guard with the uprising? I'd ask that it be please be kept to small-scale skirmishes, if this thing is going to go anywhere close to the arc outline up at the top of this thread; huge battles would knock it completely out of whack.

I'll give the White Man's response a shot.

Woot!

And for that matter, you can do up the dilemna that Stormwarden is facing.

OK, I'm trying - trying, mind you - to move this into Part 7 of the outline. Unfortunately, I'm going to be helluva busy this weekend, so my time to move on this will be sparse. Good news is it will probably take PW about a day to "fly" herself back home from Boston, so me not being able to post again until tomorrow morning sort of fits. If someone wants to write the reaction of any of the Lakota to her returning (if they see her do so), remember that they have thought her dead since the death of Wakinyan; they could react with anything from disbelief to joy to anger at "abandonment" to whatever you think appropriate. If someone wants to try to intercept her enroute, please note that I won't be able to reply until tomorrow, but I'll try to be prompt then.

Please note that PW's return is current date, to get this thing back up to speed. The idea is that the uprising has simmered with small skirmishes and guerilla-style actions for the past two months (not unreasonable, considering the terrain and the determination of the people involved, not to mention the difficulties - both political and legal - of using the Army on home ground). If folks want to post to the uprising thread, please feel free (and please advance the time in the thing as you do; you've got a couple months to play with there).

Anyone who wants to write one of the war leaders in the little pow-wow that PW has called, please post in the "Echoes of Thunder: Ptesan-Wi Returns" thread ASAP; I wanna keep this thing rolling and not fall into mega-lag like what happened over the summer. Thanks!

Um, since when is wiping out entire herds of animals an acceptable strategy? Last I checked a stray bullet into one is acceptable but executing antire herds if I'm not mistaken goes against certain Rules of Engagement. If the American Government did that there would be hell to pay.

Or am I missing something? Then again I could be entirely wrong...

Actually, it's something that has been done in damned near every war to come down the pike - including by the US .mil, including in modern conflicts such as Vietnam and the current fiasco in Iraq (there's been a ton of instances of strafed herds in Iraq, both in "insurgent-held" territory and in cases of pilots taking out their frustrations on big dumb targets of extreme opportunity). Add in the historial use of exactly the same tactic during the suppression of the Indians in the late 1800s, and it fits the story pretty darned well.

PS: And yes: it violates the Rules of Engagement. That, unfortunately, has never stopped it from happening.

Sorry for the very late response here. And finally a mature response to my questions.

The reason why I asked was JUST to get some form of verification so that there was no doubt in my mind at all this was going through. I DO know Waki was leaving for good, and my asking was more to allow those looking that weren't involved the opportunity to see the reasoning behind this event.



As for if I am or not involved... I was just f'ng asking. Before you shoot me down, at least respond to my questions. FFS...

It didn't come across as "just asking". It came across as someone coming in a more than a month after it was pretty much carved in stone and trying to start garbage. Sorry for having misread you but it really seemed like you were trying to start shit rather than ask a question.

In case anyone wonders, "what the hell is taking so long with moving this damned thing forward," the answer is two-fold:

1. My life has been a place of bizarre complications and busy-ness of late. New housemate, tons of Camarilla-based work, tons of Real-World work, various life issues, etc, etc, have resulted in a drastic shortage of time.

2. I'm... rather stuck with moving this forward to the "Ptesan-Wi Goes to the Great White(ish) Father" stage. I'll admit it: I'm a bit sheepish about being so ballsy as to actually have one of my characters try to talk to the President of the United States. Indeed, I'm toying with her getting shuffled off to some duly-appointed intermediary (such as the Sec. of the Interior), just to try to tone it down a tad. But honestly, I'm still feel like I'm grabbing way too much spotlight with it, and as Nova has been so fond of pointing out of late, I can see the sharks passing beneath my waterskis. Advice would be welcome. [EDIT: And if you think that it's OK for PW to actually do this, let me know that, too; I could be operating on poorly-founded fears here.]

*sigh* For lack of any better guidance or plan, I'm moving this sodding thing forward. May the gods have mercy upon my bleak little soul....

So basically, a psychic nova met with a high level bureaucrat and said bureaucrat developed a sudden 180 degree change in attitude ...

Isn't this the point were the Secret Service and the Directive step in?

Seriously, all PW has to do now is mind-screw the President of the United States and roughly 20 senators to get the treaty she wants. What's to stop her?

When PW wipes out the Powers to solve her problems, she proves nova-detractors right. Baselines can't deal with novas because novas will just force their will upon those less powerful. The joke is that she's not even a nova.

*sigh*

Thanks, James, for instead of offering a little constructive advice about how best to end this damned thing - you know, the post that sat out here for a freaking week - instead letting me meet dead silence, waiting for me to take my best shot, and then whacking me from behind.

Thanks a lot.

When I started this damned story arc, I did so only after talking with a number of players and getting their general nod and offer of OOC help and IC involvement. That evaporated pretty damned fast, and I've been stuck carrying this wretched thing ever since, with even the minimal assistance that a close friend or two had given finally drying up. Frankly, I wish I'd never written this arc - from Waki's death on - at all.

You want realistic governmental response... in a game that hasn't seen a realistic governmental response since the WCK set up shop. In a game that hasn't provided a realistic governmental response to the actions of most of the characters on this board. In a game that, to be blunt, fumbled anything resembling a realistic governmental response right in the sodding canon. But now, you want it. And you'll sit back and Monday morning quarterback the hell out of this arc - an arc that was designed, to be blunt, to try to stir this mostly moribund game back into something resembling life.

Fine. Have it your way. I'm marking the whole mess NC. Waki and PW can fucking rot in their cave for all I care... and frankly, so can N!Prime 2017. Have fun with your dead game.

Don't blame this on me. I've been with you for most of this story arc. I thought the latest post was rather ham-handed and not like you and I said as much. Until now, PW had been a very subtle character. That went out the window and I pointed out the possible repercussions.

At least I've cared enough about your participation here to make comments and have tried to add to your. Dammit, I made an effort. I