Ouroboros Retrograde - plot role info

[powersthatbe]

If you are not a plot infiltrator or someone with IC reasons to share knowledge available to plot infiltrators, please do not read the comments of this post.

If you ARE a plot infiltrator, please comment under your toplevel to let us know you've read it; please also popover here to announce your plotroleishness to the game at large. We prefer that you do any confidential plotting with other plot-important folks in the comments here, rather than on plurk, and please comment no later than January 13th, 21st, 29th & February 6th, 14th & 22nd with a brief (as brief as 1 sentence; as long as you like) summary of your activity during the week & plans for next week. These comments will help the mods shape mingles and plot events to keep the story dynamic and player actions important to the outcome. Likewise, comment at any time with any questions you may have, and a mod will get back to you within 36 hours at the outside.

Comments

Freedom Fighter - Allura

[powersthatbe]

People think of Champions as bright exemplars, and Adversaries (new as they are to your generation) as dark and desperate. If that was all there was to it, you’d be an Adversary for sure. Even later generations, who understand Adversaries are about Agency, might think someone as focused on Freedom as you are would become an Adversary easily.

Here’s why they’re wrong: Adversaries look out for themselves. You will always be Champion of Freedom, because your cause is emancipation of all people, in all times, a cause so ambitious and so much bigger than you are that you have almost no thought for yourself.

Yes, in waking life you’re a slave on the Diabolin Throneworld. Yes, those conditions are miserable and desperate, and any day you might die doing the dangerous industrial work you’re set to in the Diabolin weapon-foundries. But you, and your circumstances, aren’t important. What’s important is the dream of freedom. You will crush every nightmare, every despair, take any chance, any bargain, to make sure that everyone you encounter knows freedom is possible and fights as hard as they can to achieve it. Rebellions are built on hope.

Thread Expectation: Three+ threads/mingle with different characters!

Plot skill: Shacklebreaker. This gravity-warping melee weapon was built both in dreams and the Waking World - though you have to hide it there - and the dreams it’s forged of mean that in dreams it can, at least temporarily, shatter any chain, literal or metaphorical, that it strikes.

Re: Freedom Fighter - Allura

[reallymean]

Would it be possible to change the archetype very slightly to Liberation, in order to avoid doubling up with a Champion archetype another player's already chosen?

Re: Freedom Fighter - Allura

[whatspringislike]

Yes.

Re: Freedom Fighter - Allura

[reallymean]

Awesome, thanks!

Re: Freedom Fighter - Allura

[powersthatare]

Anything to report from week 1/plans for week 2?

Re: Freedom Fighter - Allura

[reallymean]

Right here.

Re: Freedom Fighter - Allura

[powersthatare]

Didn't see that until after poking everyone, sorry!

Re: Freedom Fighter - Allura

[powersthatare]

Anything to report from week 2/plans for week 3?

Re: Freedom Fighter - Allura

[reallymean]

Dropped the ball a little due to illness, but Allura went hunting for the Glatisant in her own time, attempting to track it through the Diabolin nightmare warrens with Oracle!Ringabel's help for at least part of the time. She also continued trying to convince some Travelers to help with her waking world rebellion - she's going to try to convince Minako to try portalling into the waking world here, though we haven't managed to get far enough to know whether the convincing will take.

Week 3, she's going to continue trying to scare up some allies, in hopes of somehow getting them to her waking world to make a play for seizing the foundry as a base for a larger rebellion - but she'll also be working on a more grounded plan for sabotage in the waking world.

Re: Freedom Fighter - Allura

[powersthatbe]

Anything to report from week 3/plans for week 4?

[reallymean]

Would something like a Sanction be considered a chain that could be shattered?

Also, regarding the "in dreams" functionality of Shacklebreaker - outside the Jaunt, does that mean I'd have to find a way to take a lucid dreaming skill for Allura for it to be used, or is there more flexibility once the Jaunt is over, similar to the Archetypal [X] Magic skills being usable while a Traveler's awake?

[whatspringislike]

More flexibility!

It's also notable that it's fairly unique for being an item that exists in both Questing Country and the Known Worlds and has very similar functionality in both.

[reallymean]

I figured that was probably unusual. Does it have precedent? Or should I be flagging it as 'this isn't something that's happened before' for anyone who does encounter it both in and out of dreams during the Jaunt?

[whatspringislike]

She would not be aware of it happening before! Whether various Oracle-senpai may have is a different story.

Week 1 check in

[reallymean]

Allura's spent most of Week 1 meeting people from the various other timelines and attempting to get a sense of who might be able and/or willing to help the rebels' cause. She's asked Phillip to bring a request for aid to the other Travelers, and is attempting to get some information on the future out of Ringabel and information on future explosives tech from Malik; other threads are still in early stages.

For Week 2, she's probably going to continue sounding out potential allies or sources of information, and trying to work out whether the magic that allows the Travelers to zip around between universes might allow them to, say, move directly from Questing Country into her waking world.

Speaking of the waking world, how large are the weapon-foundries? What sort of weapons do they forge, aside from the obvious gravity weapons? How tight is security, and oversight of the slaves? I'm thinking that in the waking world, she's working on a plan to either sieze or cripple one or more of them, but I'm not sure what's really feasible in that regard.

[bigbookofd]

Pending a check-in with the mods for use of Know Greater Consequences Of Actions, Future!Ringabel will be very willing to give Allura that help. He'll even say that's the reason why when he decides to act.

Just, you know, fussy careful Oracle.

Re: Week 1 check in

[powersthatare]

We would be very interested to be linked to such a travel attempt if it happens!

The weapon foundries Allura works in cover an area about a hundred meters tall, three hundred meters wide, and fourteen hundred meters long. They contain forges and production lines for all manner of gravity melee weapons, 'telekinesis guns' for Diabolin cyborg warriors, gravity lances for spaceships, and railguns for both warriors and spacecraft, as well as the ammunition for those guns, made of radioactive thorium and cobalt.

Her understanding would be that other such factories exist but that hers is the single largest and most prestigious on this specific planet.

Security is brutal, but not necessarily tight. Diabolin guards guarantee obedience by not only punishing rebels or thieves but the crews they work on and the families of those crews - so most crews police themselves to prevent rebellion.

That said, elven rebels in the past have occasionally built combustion devices which incinerate themselves or their companions post-mortem, preventing identification, and rebels displaying their possession of such countermeasures regularly receive more help or trust (or at least, silence) from local crews. Short of genetic scans, Diabolin guards rarely bother attempting to casually identify their slaves - if the right number of workers do the right amount of work, why bother to doublecheck?

Re: Week 1 check in

[reallymean]

Further questions on security - what sort of armaments and enhancements do the guards have? Are they cyborgs, or just regular Diabolin? Is there a military detachment on-site or nearby?

In terms of structural security, are there any lockdown mechanisms, and is there a central area where those can be tripped or prevented from being tripped?

Re: Week 1 check in

[powersthatare]

They're cyborgs - mostly veterans who were sufficiently wounded to be cycled to guard duty - mostly relying on telekinesis guns and shock devices.

There are lockdown mechanisms in an office suspended from the top of the vault - they handle power distribution as well as the automated factory systems such as assembly lines, ventilation and fire suppression, heating and cooling systems.

Re: Week 1 check in

[reallymean]

Awesome.

We've assumed there are a couple of security substations given the size of the place, and a few locations that are too remote and/or uncomfortable for anyone to go unless absolutely necessary, to make for secluded meeting or portal spots - is that reasonable?

Also, is it possible to kill the main power without also killing the ventilation, or would they be on a time limit to get it back up before anyone suffocates if they did?

Week 3 Check-in

[reallymean]

After helping with the Glatisant in the Rise Era, Allura's spent most of the week gathering allies for an attempt to take over the foundry in the Waking World, culminating in a meeting here to discuss strategy. Most of the conspirators are accounted for here, but we've also got Bayek and Tachibana, and Matthew Swift as transport.

Main plan for her in Week 4 is actually putting the plan to take over the foundry into action, for good or for ill. I'm tentatively planning to get her killed in the course of the revolt, as a part of her character arc and because it seems like a good narrative fit, but I can put that on hold if she's needed for plot reasons in the finale mingle.

Re: Week 3 Check-in

[whatspringislike]

She can absolutely get killed as part of the revolt if that's what you want!

Re: Week 3 Check-in

[reallymean]

Couple questions!

First, unrelated to Week 4 shenanigans, Altair is asking Allura here about the possibility of breaking the connection with his Arcana, and if he does want to go through with it, she's going to make the attempt - so what's that going to do?

Second, regarding the Week 4 Waking World rebellion - how plausible is it for the not-so-merry band of rebels + Travelers to actually take the foundry? And if they do pull it off, how swift will the retaliation be, and/or how far into the city might they plausibly be able to push before getting crushed?

Re: Week 3 Check-in

[whatspringislike]

Taking it should be within the Travelers' power. Holding it would not be - Diabolin retaliation might be delayed by as much as a day or two, but if their ground forces had trouble retaking it they'd pull back and use radioactive artillery bombardment. Their best chance is to take the factory, loot it, wreck it, and scatter.

If they push into the city as quickly as they can, they might be able to make it all the way to the local palace, but they'd take absolutely brutal losses on the way, as attacks on the Palace are something the Diabolin expect and prepare for.

Week 4 Check-in

[reallymean]

Allura's main activity this week was leading a small revolt on the Diabolin Throneworld. The specifics of the revolt are still being threaded here, OOC plan is here and in comments to this post.

Allura died during the revolt, so she's going to be Dame Not Appearing In This Mingle for the upcoming week. She did charge Sara with taking up Shacklebreaker should both she and Thae die in the fighting (which they did), so she could do what she can to help the Adversaries while the Travelers are still around and then hand it off to some watery tart sink it in the Dreaming Pools to create Elfscalibur. Or find a sufficient ideological match to be Allura's successor.