[OOC][PLOT] The Sixth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals

[Labster]

"Oh, yeah. Hey, Luna, where's the Disguise Pen?"

"Tomoyo borrowed it, she had some things she wanted to try out."

But not really.  She can't use magic, because reasons.

If Usagi needs any help my apartment has six professional tour guides, just sayin.   Possibly seven.  (No, Touya is not a part-time undine, thanks for asking.)

[robkelk]

If Usagi needs any help my apartment has six professional tour guides, just sayin.   Possibly seven.  (No, Touya is not a part-time undine, thanks for asking.)

All of whom are taking the tour, not giving it - they have to learn the landmarks somehow. But thanks for the offer.

[Labster]

I'm at 27 kB on my own story, which is not very far.  Maybe like a quarter written to the draft, or even less.  I'm trying to do the thing where I write a little bit every day; this brings me about 3 kB each session.  Not amazing, but at least I know I can get something out when I need to.

And now only at 34kB.  Sheesh, I am slow.  Stupid day job.

[robkelk]

You're faster than I was. I managed one line last weekend... and it was a draft note, not an actual story line.

[robkelk]

Put a few more lines into the skating story. Somebody actually wears skates! And somebody else shows up for a cameo appearance.

Maybe, if I'm very lucky, I'll have enough to post another scenelet either this weekend or next.

[Labster]

I'm thinking about adding C&A's Satan to the mix, since her nature as a griefer fits right in with the AMG cosmology. But now I have a couple scenes in mind, so I have to ask something about her specifically. Satan never lies. She decieves, she misleads, she speaks in diabolical riddles. But she never tells untruths. So for fitting her in, is this because:
* She's a demon first class, unlimited, and therefore subject to the same rules as Belldandy
* Because she was born celestial, it's part of her nature not to lie, and she just keeps it up because it's funny
* She does it to grief the goddesses
* Satan's first appearance in canon (you know, that canon) was as an attorney for the prosecution, and in her role she can't purjure herself.

I kind of need to know why to make the joke work, but the reason why doesn't matter, as long as Urd knows that Satan never lies (and Brent doesn't know). Are any of these reasons incompatible with our other sources?

[robkelk]

The only one that might be incompatible is the "born celestial" one. After all, Urd was born celestial, too. "Because it's funny" works, though - especially considering her source ficton.

[robkelk]

Put a few more lines into the skating story. Somebody actually wears skates! And somebody else shows up for a cameo appearance.

Maybe, if I'm very lucky, I'll have enough to post another scenelet either this weekend or next.

Sorry, no - too many long days at work this week.

[Labster]

Just for sharing, since many of us are writing characters from the 1990s being moved into the 2010s: My Ordinary Life: Improvements Since the 1990s.  It's kinda computing technology focused, but there are a few gems like this one:

> laser pointers are no longer exotic executive toys or for planetariums, they’re things you buy off eBay for $1 for your cat

And, of course, in the '90s the Mercury Computer was very futuristic -- now that form factor has been made and has already gone out of style!  (Of course the onboard sensors are still quite futuristic.)

[Black Aeronaut]

Ami should upgrade to the Scouter form factor from DBZ. That thing has a certain timelessness to it.

Plus an option for a fully holographic "work station" mode.

[Bob Schroeck]

Speaking of which, maybe she should talk to Washuu for the new design.

[Norgarth]

@Robkelk

A gruff male voice that neither Mii nor Ami had heard before replied, "We have uninvited guests. Three unidentified targets incoming. They're humanoid, but they're flying."

"Radar indicates they're very dense, probably robots of some sort," another voice they hadn't heard before added.

for some reason the first thing to pop into my head was David Xanatos in his Power Armor, accompanied by a couple Steel Clan Bots (even in Winter, 4:30 is too early for the Sun to be down)

Now I'm trying to remember which threads to find a) the list of Tenants assigned to Windsor, and b) the thread where we were random rolling powers for those of us without ideas .  I seem to recall I ended up with Telepathy, Astral projection and Flight (the last possibly linked to the second).  If correct, that would make NPC-Me a good choice to go out and get an early look at the newcomers.

[robkelk]

Interesting idea as to who's dropping in. Wrong, but interesting...

The in-universe second person's guess is correct; they are robots of some sort. However, they aren't off-the-assembly-line robots from their home universe, because somebody's upgraded them so that they can fly.


Here's the random-roll powers thread. Your SI had a confused mish-mash of powers if you went the science route, or "Telepathy, Flight, and Astral Projection" if you went the magic route.

As for who's in the residence, I usually use the wiki... Sorry.

[robkelk]

Speaking of which, maybe she should talk to Washuu for the new design.

Eventually, Washuu-chan is going to say "no, I don't have time to do that for you; I have experiments running."

Besides, Skuld's already supplied perfectly good hardware (the cellphones), HAL can code the software, and Kazari can secure it. No need to bother a scientist for an engineering job.

[robkelk]

I have a question that only Dartz can answer.

How much, if anything, do the 33-Stars know about other types of Boomers?

I'd expect that they can at least recognize a Doberman on sight, but what do they know about other models?


(Of course, this will end up buried in a single paragraph in a story... but I need to know what ends up in that paragraph.)

[Dartz]

That's a good question.

Probably about as much as an average human in Megatokyo in 2033. Maybe some 'recognise on sight' for certain models that they've worked with. But they'd know as much about the technicality of how they work, as the average human knows about how humans work.

---

EDIT: If you want to do otherwise, to make a plot work, feel free to do so.

[robkelk]

Thanks. I think the story will work better this way than if they knew the technical specs.

[robkelk]

Put a few more lines into the skating story. Somebody actually wears skates! And somebody else shows up for a cameo appearance.

Maybe, if I'm very lucky, I'll have enough to post another scenelet either this weekend or next.

Still don't have enough of this to post. However, I'll spoil the cameo, since Bob made this post elsewhere on the forums:

Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Saturday, January 14, 2017
12:57 PM ET


"Why don't we both go skating like this, Mako-chan? It'll be fun!"

Makoto looked at Eternal Sailor Moon for a long moment. "Is Hyoga-san going to show off her wings, too?"

"Oopsie!" Usagi transformed from Eternal Sailor Moon to Sailor Moon. "So much happened today that I forgot which form I was in. Is this better?"

Makoto nodded, then grinned. "Sure, let's pretend to be cosplayers today."


Somewhere in Russia
Same time

"I just had the strangest feeling."

"We don't have time to talk about strange feelings - the tournament in Japan is only two months away. And you still need to polish that 'transformation' in the middle of your routine. Get back onto the ice, Evgenia; I'll start the music from the beginning."

[Bob Schroeck]

<snort>

[Black Aeronaut]

Hah! Nice.

There should be a scene or a short somewhere where Usagi truly has it dawn upon her just how many fans she has.

[Labster]

If this were Senshi: The Merchandising, Evgenia would already have minor sailor powers.

I'm finally back to writing.  A little bit.  It's mostly coming out as editing existing passages, but that's fine since I do a lot of edits, it's work that needs to be done. Here, have a little preview.

Tomo considered her duty, "Is this one of those things where I need to call Minako-chan?"

Brent averred, "Well, Salem's kind of like Naraku, but harder to kill."

"Okay yeah calling now."  She fetched the phone out of her pocket, not thinking about how it would be after three in the morning in Ottawa.

A new voice joined the conversation, "Don't worry about it, she's gone for tonight."

"Ah! Goddess-sama!" Akari greeted.

In the last thread, I said I would visit BA this summer during my trip to Houston.  So my job has cancelled all travel.  And then the conference got canceled this week, or possibly postponed to this time next summer depending on how the hotel responds.  Oh, and one of the people I look forward to seeing there died in an accident.  Oh, and there's no money to hire a replacement for him at work (and has sent everyone to work from home).  So, everything is fucked up.

Do we need Sakura to Twin a few N95 masks or anything?

[robkelk]

Do we need Sakura to Twin a few N95 masks or anything?

We need Sakura to Twin a few N95 mask factories - along with all the healer mages.

But I suspect we'll be in Arc 2 by the time 2019 rolls around... or, at least, I hope we'll be in Arc 2 by the time 2019 rolls around. Space makes for an excellent block to the spread of epidemics.

[Black Aeronaut]

If nothing else, there will be Starfleet Medical around with their top-of-the-line hospital ships. And probably working hand-in-hand with other high-power medical types like Sailor Mercury.

Hey, now there's a thought: Ami going through Starfleet Medical for her own medical training. Can you imagine what her dissertation would be like? "Comparative Analysis of Cancer Treatments in The United Federation of Planets and The Silver Moon Empire" maybe?

[robkelk]

Maybe... but canonically Ami wants to be a pediatrician, so she'd probably pick a different topic.

[Black Aeronaut]

What, you mean they don't practice pediatric medicine in Starfleet?  Those Galaxy-class ships didn't have schools in them for nothing.

(At least the early models did.  The Dominion War production models are actually mostly empty space on the inside!  But they were built with the intention of being "finished out" at a later date.)