MOD:WCU:PR3nutshell

NOTE: These are some of the questions the deep plot should answer (pasted from a forum post):

EDIT: Where I think our work needs to go now is figuring out the Deep Plot. What's the Deep Plot? The plot that won't necessarily be apparent: There maybe trouble and factionalization within the Retros. There maybe territorial wars between pirate clans. Retros who don't trust Kroiz; retros who do. Retros who don't trust kats; retros who do. Kats who don't trust Kroiz; kats who do. Kats who don't trust retros; kats who do. What happened with the retro leadership? That retro informant... did he take over? Does he trust Kroiz? Does Kroiz trust him? Is he still in touch with Monte? Was he principled? Was he really a retro, or just playing the part in a long term plan to destroy them from the top down? Was Kroiz in with the informant on the plan to get rid of Menesch/Jones? Lynch, Kroiz, Lang... what's their relationship? Competitive, I'm sure, but they must have *some* deals, or are they openly at war? Are there merchant sub-factions? We know there are Guild merchants and independent merchants. And we know some merchants do cargo runs for mob-controlled mining operations; some presumably don't. That's four potential subfactions of merchants, already... We know there are Confeds that have deals with the mobs. There are secret Black Ops confed forces. There's the Belisarius group. There's Black Lance. But there's at least one more subfaction within Confeds: Masteron's secret society, which is also Monte's. Monte may pose as a Black Ops operative, and may even agree to some of its aims, such as elliminating retro infiltrators in the body politique. But is he 100% Black Ops aligned? I doubt it. Steltek ideology doesn't sound too similar to Tolwyn's... Did Tolwyn found the Black Operations Division? If so, did he lose control of it? Or why does he later found the Black Lance? What about the Belisarius group? Did he found that also? How much does Eisen know about Tolwyn's plans? Who else is in with Tolwyn? Hugh Paulsen, for sure. Anyone else? Who else is in with Eisen? Blair for sure. Anyone else? And what exactly is Tolwyn's religion or ideology. Seems pretty Nazi to me... "clensing the human race" ..., and where ends justify means... Or are the means also ends? Perhaps he *said* he wanted to cause a war for the sake of Confederation readiness in the eventual, future resumption of war with Kilrah; but he actually thought Pilgrims were an abomination that should be erradicated? Perhaps he regretted that the Pilgrim war ended without the anihilation of the Pilgrims? Are Pilgrims really gifted with psychic powers? Or do they simply suffer from abnormally high secretion of endorphins, to the point of having vivid hallucinations accompained by feelings of well-being, easily confused with "revelation"? Should anyone trust their politicians? To what extent is the government of Border Worlds aligned or penetrated by Pilgrim racism or extremism? There must be at least two opposing views on Pilgrim's future within BW politics. Do Eisen and Blair defect to BW for fear of persecution by the Belisarius group? Why BW and not, say, Firekka or Landreich? Neither of them are Pilgrims; both born on Earth, IIRC. If Pilgrims (now BW) are the Spacers, Gemini are the Settlers of Asimov's Foundation. Do Pilgrims feel threatened by the "Settlers"? Do they get psychic revelations about gemini politicians (or mobsters) plotting against the Border Worlds? Could in fact the Belisarius group be getting financing for themselves, Black Ops Div and Black Lance from sales of weapons and ships to retros and pirates through mobsters like Lynch and Kroiz?

Once we get a better idea of what's really going on, we can build a more detailed story upon it. *Then*, we can throw Burrows into this soup and see what happens.

This other post puts the whole story, as it was developing in my mind at the time, "in a nutshell"; and although some parts are obsolete by now, it makes good reading :)

Okay, here's how the story is developing in my mind; just ideas for now:

2669.20 start of Privateer

2669.100 start of RF

2669.180 Jones killed

2669.190 You're, at a pleasure base, the base gets attacked and when you go to the launchpad your ship's not there, and in the upgrades you see a pile of junk (your ship destroyed) and at ship sales you have 0 credits. At the bar there's a merchant who offers you 5000 creds and transportation to New Det if you work as gunner on his drayman for the trip. Anyways, you end up at Perry and enlist with the Confeds.

2669.195 you depart for kilrah in a carrier under Reismann

2669.220 you return as reservist and are immediately called into duty aboard another carrier under Tolwyn; --the 19th Fleet, and after a stint deep into Kilrah, you...

2669.245 randevouz with the TCS Victory at Caliban. Tolwyn assumes command of the Victory frome Eisen, you have a chat with Blair at the bar, where he explains to you things about the Confed nobody else would have the guts to speak about:

Many Confed officials have dealings with mobs, deal in weapons sales to pirates and other outlaw groups, or are retro or mandarin infiltrators. Retros have penetrated confed and political circles, etceteras. And that within confed circles nobody trusts the next person, as they could be an ally of any mob boss or a retro or a mandarin, and merely showing dislike of a particular faction can get you killed.

Your PC asks him at some point why is he a Confed, knowing all he knows? And he answers with a question, "What else would I do? Let the Kilrathy take over our systems?"

He tells you also that Kroiz is alive, is the main dealer between corrupt Confeds, pirates and retros, and that it was him who attacked the base where you were staying, destroying your ship; that he's placed a big bounty on you; and that he's supposedly producing copies of the steltek gun. That you've got a tough problem ahead: if you want to live, and the Confederation to remain viable, you need to defeat him; but that he's got an entire fleet already; and it's therefore hard to imagine how you'll pull that off, but is confident you will.

Then he asks you to send his regards to Masterson's, childhood friend.

2669.250 you arrive in Sol under Eisen, get paid and discharged. Enough credits to buy a tarsus and equip it fully, or a centurion with basic stuff.

You can now play side-plots, or go back to Gemini to see Masteron at Oxford. Just like honorable discharge gives you access to Confed mil-spec upgrades, Firekkan, Landreich and Border World side-plots give you access to some of their technologies.

At Oxford, Masterson says he was expecting you, that he'd heard you met Blair, and that he has some missions for you. After the missions he says that Monte is in need of your services, and that, this time, he will be able to pay for your services, thanks to a wealthy, anonymous sponsor.

Monte dispenses you Black Ops missions: Assassinations of Retro infiltrators in the political circles. During this time, he programs jump points into your ship's computer that you never knew were there. In some of these sistems there'd be squatted planets, *real* pirate bases, illegal mining operations using slave labor, and so on. If you land in some of these planets, you might find maps that might uncover many other undocumented jump points.

At the end of the Black Ops, approximately at the end of the war, Monte gives you a piece of advice: Become an explorer, find a good system: with a good number of planets of various types, rich in resources, far from any known systems, and with few points of access. Start a colony there, make sure it remains hidden, and once you do so, he will contact you again. And that your life depends on it. And he might suggest you start off at some quadrant in Enigma. He gives you the unofficial zone maps for the Enigma sector.

EDIT:

Once you have a colony started, Monte asks to see you again, and now he gives you a bigger picture of the plan: You need to colonize many of the other planets in your system, mine the asteroids, and eventually build a fleet. You'll need people for that, but many people in Sol have been left homeless since the Battle of Sirius and the Battle of Earth, and a friend of his has an operation to relocate them, and many are willing to relocate to a hidden base, as long as it's secure. You go to Sol, meet Monte's friend and begin a series of trips bringing shuttles of refugees to your system.

After that, you can leave your system alone and let it develop.

In the meantime, you get a call from someone in the Border Worlds. If you haven't done the Border Worlds sideplot yet, you do it now. Either way, the second Border Worlds plot starts, and has to do with the Lance. You uncover the mystery; they go to Blair with it, and the rest is canon.

Now you get a call from the Landreich: If you haven't done the Landreich sideplot yet, you do it now. Either way, the second Landreich plot starts, and it has to do with a Kilrathi buildup. You end up going to the heart of Kilrah and taking pictures of the buildup. The Landreich pay you a good sum of money and give you access to Leech technology. They then present this information to the Confeds, as per canon.

EDIT2 (@Spirit): Actually, if you want the AWACS plot to start at the peace treaty, it would come before the Border Worlds and Landreich. What IS the AWACS plot, anyways?, for them or against them? If it's for them, my concern is you might become enemies with the Confed, and therefore with BW and Land. If so, I'd leave it for after. BTW, are AWACS WC canon?, or are they a Vegastrike import?

EDIT3: I'm thinking, after the peace treaty, the Confeds start laying off, and a lot of the soldiers become hunters, pirates, or go to work for the mobs. This is something Blair could warn you about: that the war WILL be coming to an end soon, but the problems could get worse. According to canon, when Blair is sent to investigate BW complaints and disoverce the Lance, he defects to the Border Worlds; so it would be quite fitting that he has a dark and gloomy view of the Confed at the time of meeting Burroughs just before the behemoth episode, AFAICT.

Later I updated the above post as follows:

Update to plotline and suggested location for PC's colony ((Revised from my last post in the "Spirit: Do we have this whole map?" thread)):

I know EXACTLY where to base your secret empire...

The Tri-System

Yes. Waaay up there. No conflicts with canon, since these systems aren't heard of till Priv2. And here's the thing: The 10 main ideas for the plot, so far, are:

• 1 ) Losing your ship, 20th Fleet career, then meet Blair 1st time
• 2 ) Trade and upgrade time (around time of signing of Peace Treaty)
• 3 ) Border World missions (Black Lance), then meet Blair 2nd time
• 4 ) AWACS missions
• 5 ) Landreich missions, kat buildup, then meet Blair 3rd time
• 6 ) Black Ops against government retro infiltrators (Monte missions)
• 8 ) Exploration/colonization/strategic buildup begins
• 7 ) Black Ops against mob-allied Confeds (secret Terrel missions)
• 9 ) Firekkan missions (while your colony keeps growing left alone)
• 10) The Armada-like showdown with Kroiz.

(+ Possible armada-like showdowns with a politician and a Confed, and possibly with corporations using slave labor.)

Now, the moment you start with Black Ops, Confeds, Militias and Hunters become your enemies. Neither Monte nor Blair nor Terrel can do anything about it, as you're having to execute corrupt politicians and confeds without due process, which goes against Article 9 of the Confederation. So you're getting more and more popular, but more and more "wanted".

Furthermore, when you get to the exploration part of the plot you have to become a pirate. Not just friendly to pirates, but actually join The Brotherhood, for which you have to do missions for them, so as to be able to go to their secret bases, so that you can buy exploration equipment. So you'll get so used to being considered a pirate, and an assassin, that you might as well stay so till the end of the game. In fact, when you go to destroy Kroiz's base you'll find a Confed fleet defending it! So, you'll finish the game basically as a pirate, which sort of leads into a background for what later becomes Privateer2; --kind of "explains" where Priv2 is coming from.

See also Exploration.

The following is from a private message answer to a private message question posed by mkruer about the motivations for Burrows to leave "civilization" for the tri-system. He was suggesting a groupie or girlfriend getting killed, which I'm not opposed to at all; but in this private message I was just letting him know that there are motivations aplenty already... So the text of that message follows:

Essentially, my story behind the story goes like this:

Tolwyn has more in mind than the benefit of the Confederation's war readiness, in plotting a war with BW: His plan is to see the Confederation ripped apart, so that a new empire may be born, possibly with himself as generalissimo. Not only does he control Black Ops and the Black Lance mutants, but he also possibly controls the Mandarins, and had a part in the deal between Menesche and the Kilrathi. Masterson and Monte are members of a secret religion based on ancient Steltec writings, who believe in limiting technology to within the boundaries that will make it a servant of Humanity rather than its master. The Retros are an extremist splinter of that religion. The former oppose the Retros, Menesche, Jones, as well as Tolwyn. Monte could be an ex-Black Ops that knew too much to leave, and therefore is in permanent exile.

Okay, so Burrows enlists with the Confeds and, after the military stint, or during it, gets to meet Blair and fight him --one on one-- on a simulator; followed by a ton of advice.

At the end of the war, Burrows does all the subplots that are Confed-friendly first, like Landreich, Firekka, possibly other subplots in the Vega sector. Each of those plots could include hints or connections to the Tolwyn story.

Then Blair, who has heard of this steltec religion during his retirement in Nephele, (a group of steltec religion followers have a ranch next to his piece of land, though they pass themselves as "Buddhists"), sends for him. Blair knows nothing about Tolwyn's role, yet, but heard that a job needs doing which is necessary, but officially illegal. He's heard about Retro (and Mandarin?) infiltrators in government and Confed ranks, and the need for a purge. He cannot do that, himself, as a military career man; but he has every confidence Burrows could do it. He sends Burrows to meet a man at a Confed base in Sol, who is a steltec faithful, as well as a military man; and the latter puts Burrows to work on "gray ops": elliminating politicians that are Retro or Mandarin operatives. The last of these missions you have to attack the secret base of a political candidate, which is hidden in a gray zone system.

He tells you to meet a ship that will guide you there, as well as escort storm troopers that will destroy some ground targets, capture key people, and gather evidence. When you meet the man on that ship, after the operation, it's Monte. After you get paid for that mission, the military man tells you that Monte wants to meet you at the bar at Oxford. Then comes a talk between Monte, Masterson and Burrows at the bar, where the story of the steltec religion and the Retro splinter is revealed. Now come the dark grey ops: Assassinations of Confed officials involved in the whole Tolwyn, Black Ops, Mandarin, Retro thing, and the sale of decomissioned Confed materiel through the Gemini mobs.

Here's why we go to the Tri-System:

Throughout all of this, Burrows becomes *officially* Public Enemy Number One, both with Confed, Hunter and Militias, and more than just officially enemies with the kats and retros. Your only friends may be the pirates, if any at all. Your radar will be a sea of red most of the time. Additionally, there's Kroiz, who has taken over from Menesche, and has put a hefty price on your head; and he's amassing an entire fleet, with his huge earnings. And has sworn to kill you himself sooner or later. (He has no face, only a prosthetic mask, barely having escaped alive after your fight with him in Rikel.) Additionally, Monte is also Public Enemy Number One with Confeds and Militias, but in any case, he's been given the job, as high ranking member of the steltec religion, to build a big fleet in some secret place, and he requests your help in achieving this goal. The purpose of the fleet is to defeat Kroiz's fleet first, and destroy the Retros second. But the player will be able to then use this large fleet to attack other mafia and pirate bases, if he chooses to do so.

So, that's my idea for how Burrows ends up going far up North. But it does not preclude there being other reasons as well... --I like the idea of a girlfriend or friend getting killed; put some emotion into the story.