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Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns

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EarthScorpion said:
[ ] To close a CTC Loop
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Okay so I have two sets of problems with this option.

First, the write-in feels a bit like:

Cat: The 30's were great.
Jamelia: oh?
Cat: Yeah, you should totally visit.
Jamelia: I'll keep that in mind.
Cat: By the way, could you go back in time for me?
Jamelia: To the 30's?
Cat: No.
Jamelia: Oh.
Jamelia: Then when?
Cat: Week of Nightmares.

Which came off a little bit odd. I originally suspected thought you were going to have us go back in time, see the Technocratic Virtual Adepts, and help damage the pre-1900 records. Sadly, that wasn't to be.

Second, Time Travel is a very hard subject to do well, and very easy to do poorly. This is even more true in an open ended game like this. I'm a little bit afraid we'll end up with most of our options looking like:

[] Don't do anything.
[] Do something minor [10 paradox]
[] Do something major [100 paradox]

Consequently, I'm not even sure this arc would really be a quest and not just effectively an intermission, given the lack of true choice we'd have.

(Just checking, but we have made sure that @MJ12 Commando is willing to even run a time travel arc, right?)

Thus I'll give a weak vote for
[x] To visit an alternate history and find allies there.

Since we are still looking for additional party members. That was our original goal in this part of the arc, wasn't it? Further, alt-history party members could easily be best party members.

This is only a weak vote since this doesn't sound like it has an especially good risk reward ration.
 
Garlak said:
I actually assumed that that was what Catherine was going to do. ES's write-in had her going "something you've done in the past", and "borrowing a week of time" and it implied that what was going to happen was that Past!Jamelia was going to do stuff and at the end of it Past!Jamelia would only remember a vacation.

I'm not even sure how the "two Jamelia's running around" would even work -- after all, right now Jamelia is just a mind. She has no body. Unless she would be sent back and corporealize and materialize on arrival, I guess.
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Well, I was sort of leaving it open [1]. After all, it's not just like there's one valid host body out there. There's another one - and oh look! She then spends the next fifteen years in Sleepytown.

(We can, in fact, say Jazmin literally brought this on herself. Of course, that also means Jamelia brought "being stabbed in the mind with an astral knife" on herself.)

Either way, though, Jamelia would be doing her things in the Deep Umbra. That's basically the only way she wouldn't very quickly explode from 'Dox, and because that's where all the information is. And because that's where she can change things and actually do things like blow up entire space stations which the Void Engineers haven't had contact with and it turns out they were destroyed all along and thus not take 'Dox while gutting Agency presence in areas of space [2] [3] and leaving Threat Null much more reliant on their blunt hammers.

[1] And no, the fact that Jamelia is currently in the same state as an Agent with regards to the possibility of body jumping... well, it makes you think, doesn't it?

[2] After all, unlike the Transhumans and the Autopolitans, the Residents and the Agency find it a lot harder to recruit or create new high-value assets. Residents are all unique, powerful vizier-spirits who spend as much time trying to buy-out each other and thus don't welcome the competition, while the Agency... well, it can make disposable Agents, but the strength of the NWO always lay in its veteran core of Enlightened and its institutional knowledge, and the Agency may well have inherited that weakness. After all, when you think of the NWO you think of faceless black suited goons and a faceless bureaucracy being led and organised by a few sinister conspirators and 'boss' agents, and that's going to shape how the Agency formed.

[3] It's so ~nwo~ to keep the Void Engineers running because they didn't know how many of you there were, jumping at faces in the shadows because you really didn't have as many assets as they thought. So very ~nwo~.
 
~nwo~ron

Sadly, overuse of the NWO gland is a serious stressor on the Operative, in mind and body.
 
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MJ12 Commando said:
"Yes. The enemy has come. Your first trial. Your next few will reveal themselves in time. A Caesar, but not of his blood, dressed in white, with the power of armies and an all-seeing eye. An emperor who may be convinced to abdicate. Another trial, finding new understanding in the void. A hermit kingdom and its connection to a shattered Realm. Perhaps even a world where Ascension came and Threat Null did not, where Panopticon are the last guardsman at the gate rather than the snake in the grass."
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Honestly? CTC sounds cool, but I've been wondering about this for ages, and it sounds really, really good. Especially that last sentence. I want to talk to the Augustine Aleph who leads the last resistance against Ascension; the last, lone soldier standing against the dark. Because the one we're fighting is Jamelia But Better, and honestly? I think that learning from his good twin might be the best, if not only way we stand any serious chance of turning him. We're in "Another trial, finding new understanding in the void". The hermit kingdom and shattered Realm is hard to guess at. But that last sentence is definitely something I want to look into. And comes with considerably less risk of exploding from paradox. Hence...

[X] To visit an alternate history and find allies there.
 
[X] CTC? Alternate World? (Something else?) I am now not sure of what to pick now.
EarthScorpion said:
while the Agency... well, it can make disposable Agents, but the strength of the NWO always lay in its veteran core of Enlightened and its institutional knowledge, and the Agency may well have inherited that weakness. After all, when you think of the NWO you think of faceless black suited goons and a faceless bureaucracy being led and organised by a few sinister conspirators and 'boss' agents, and that's going to shape how the Agency formed.
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Actually, when mentioning the Agents... There was something I was wondering about.

Shouldn't the Agency be made up of all the Senior Watchers and Ivory Tower people? And not full of Operatives, because Operatives were actually the Methodology that was most on-Earth when the Dimensional Anomaly hit?

So where do all the Matrix-like agents of the Agency come from? If the Agency lacks Operatives, it doesn't quite make sense for most encounters with them to be of the "weird Matrix-like spirit-version of an Operative".

Do most Agents just come from the idea behind the NWO? That is, Threat Null can send out Agents because the NWO is known for MiB/X-Files type stuff... That sorta implies that Agents would be abnormal though; if they didn't have a pool of Operatives to draw from...

But the Agency would definitely have access to MiBs. Maybe most Agents are actually enhanced and buffed MiBs?


And what would the Ivory Tower parts of the Agents look like, for that matter?
 
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EarthScorpion said:
Well, I was sort of leaving it open [1]. After all, it's not just like there's one valid host body out there. There's another one - and oh look! She then spends the next fifteen years in Sleepytown.

(We can, in fact, say Jazmin literally brought this on herself. Of course, that also means Jamelia brought "being stabbed in the mind with an astral knife" on herself.)
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Ah, speaking of... That reminded me of a previous post.
Garlak said:
At least she's not an Agent.

Then she'd probably be compelled to plot against herself due to holding membership in mutually hostile factions.

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(This is what happens when you go full Agent. It'll be Conspiracy-turtles all the way down. Don't go full Agent. :p)
 
It seems to be coming down to either CTC or Alternate World. I would certainly advise not trying to pick both - yes, they both look cool, but chocolate pudding and mackerel both taste good; it doesn't mean that putting them together leads to something that tastes really good. Too many cooks spoil the broth, and too many plots snarl the story. Choose one of the two and stick with it; it'll be a much tighter narrative if we're not contorting things to try and both keep our cake and eat it.
 
[X] Alternate history.

CTC seems way too high risk with next to no margin for error. We have slight screw ups all the time, and those will apparantly kill us dead in the CTC option.
 
Aleph said:
It seems to be coming down to either CTC or Alternate World. I would certainly advise not trying to pick both - yes, they both look cool, but chocolate pudding and mackerel both taste good; it doesn't mean that putting them together leads to something that tastes really good. Too many cooks spoil the broth, and too many plots snarl the story. Choose one of the two and stick with it; it'll be a much tighter narrative if we're not contorting things to try and both keep our cake and eat it.
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Wait Chocolate pudding and mackerel doesn't taste good together? Is this some kind of joke?

I am however torn between both choices. But I am however a big fan of weird time loop things.

[x] To close a CTC loop.
 
Okay, I'm going to change my vote.

Both an alternate history and time travel have gotten some great foreshadowing, and they'd both be pretty awesome. But on reflection I think the alternate history might be the more narratively appropriate choice. One of the major themes of this quest has been the way that Threat Null and Panopticon embody the worst aspects of the Technocracy, and a chance to see the other side of the coin is incredibly fitting. A chance to take a look at a world that shows us what the Technocracy is supposed to stand for, and why it needs to exist... I think that would be very fitting in Jamelia's character arc right now.

So:

[X] To visit an alternate history and find allies there.
 
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[X] Find the mages and do a decapitation strike.
[X] To visit an alternate history and find allies there.

I've been convinced to change my vote. I do think that thematically, seeing what a world where Panopticon are the heroes is like would work better. Jamelia going back in time? That's cool yeah, but it seems to me that that's all it has going for it. It lacks the thematic strength of seeing an alternate timeline in my mind.
 
[X]Alternate timeline

I would add that "pinpoint, surgical changes" are not our strong suit. This isn't a tiny roleplay of a few, dedicated players with similar goals and careful methodology, who can avoid pushing the figurative button if it comes down to it. Because if our options are "kill Nephandi mecha-Hitler push the button" or "remain unseen," you know perfectly well that we'll go skipping right past the "die from terrifying amounts of Paradox backlash" bit and go straight to PUSHING THE BUTTON.

Hong Kong? We went in to investigate the sale of magical artifacts. We promptly found the building, snuck some agents inside, had a perfect setup for a Mission Impossible-esque spy technomagicalthriller...and then Jamelia put on her mirrorshades and kicked in the front door to re-enact a martial-arts movie from a gun-lover's perspective. Oh, and we also cleared out a Nephandi Labyrinth using a Marauder and Traditionalist lackeys and blowing up all the things. No big deal, eh? :V

Moscow? We were sent in to investigate the theft at a local museum. We ended up nearly causing Armageddon. Actually scratch that, we caused Armageddon and then promptly un-caused it via the power of FRIENDSHIP and FORGIVENESS and GIANT STOMPY GOD-ROBOTS.

England? Werewolf car chases and caern assaults and Pentex-killing, oh my, plus a bunch of Rogue Council terrorists and Rose tearing a Paradox Spirit apart by hand fang and need I go on?



So no, I don't think that a CTC loop would be a good idea given our general M.O. We aren't operators who operate operationally (in operations), we're the A-Team. We cause chaos, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and we thrive on it too. Our strengths have historically been in our characters' mental, social, and physical adaptability to changing situations: we've been extremely good at re-purposing "useless" assets or turning enemies into kinda-sorta friends, and we've been very capable of coping with chaos and adapting one step ahead of our foes.

Our current biggest enemy, Threat Null? They don't have that same kind of adaptability; they can't change like us. If we go to an alternate timeline where they're invading and Panopticon is the last Convention standing, we go to a chaotic warzone which plays to our strengths and to their weaknesses. Yes, they can overwhelm problems with sheer firepower, and at some point we'll presumably have to make a last desperate retreat, but that's the sort of fluid environment which presents us with a wide array of options for write-ins, improvisations, and general messing-around which lets us play effectively.

I'd also add that much like the various Exalted plothooks we've seen so far, the closed-curve hints could be handwaved with offscreen action, or with a separate write-in from EarthScorpion if he wants to, without sacrificing it entirely. Ditto for the other options, if we do choose the CTC loop. And though it's not exactly a primary consideration, I personally think we'd enjoy the more 'open' environment that an alternate universe would allow us, instead of the relatively linear and Paradox-fearing playstyle we'd have to do in the CTC option.
 
I do have to say, I am incredibly wary of alternate universes as a narrative device. Most of the time, I detest them with a flame-filled hatred made of acid and burning because of the fact that by their very nature, they detract from and lessen the scope of the main conflict through both scale inflation and dilution of relative importance. Just look at the way they get turned into "Look at what happens if" - and that's a line of logic which people here are using. Look at their incredibly long use as ways of killing characters without really killing them (and again, people here are using that same logic).

It can not be so bad in some bits of oWoD metaphysics, where they're explicitly basically reflections of the real world and fundamentally lesser - just another kind of umbral realm. But bringing them in is a massive step, and one I generally don't like at all.

(the same, of course, applies to time travel, but oWoD time travel has the plus side that it's generally safer and less painful to stick your hand into a blender)
 
Yeah, there's that downside to MWT. Because even if you win the day here, things went to crap in a thousand other timelines, and that just makes you wonder whether you really won at all.
 
I will note that Everett Volumes are not, in fact, nearly as safe as you think they are.

Fundamentally, you can either exist in one of them in some form, or not exist in one of them in some form. In either case, your very presence is paradoxical. And... hey, isn't that the same reason why time travel gets you so much paradox? You shouldn't be there without magic, period?

There may always be a reason there are no massive Void Engineer alternate universe fleets and only the Nephandi have tried to do such stunts. The Nephandi, the people who literally don't care if they end up dying horrible screaming deaths in the process of killing the universe.
 
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[x] To close a CTC loop

I think ES makes a good point about the trivializing potential of alternative history settings, and the way they do not really fit the tone of the RPG. The closed time loop is a much more elegant choice in a lot of ways. And anyway, the greater the danger the greater the damage the choice does to Threat_Null. If the CTC loop does have us risking exploding from Paradox, well, if we get away with it imagine the kind of blow that'd be to Threat_Null...
 
Well, it looks like it falls down to me to propose an alternative option for people who might just want something simpler. Something which involves alien races and strangers and classical sci-fi things (since we are in spaaaaaaaace). Something which the QUEST is actually well-suited for.

Something which involves blowing up something which is no moon.

[ ] To disrupt a Resident deal involving shady things in the Umbra (like evil aliens and Nephandi)
-> [ ] By tricking an Autopolitan mothership into blowing up the entire space station it's on.
-> [ ] Then sabotage the Autopolitan mothership

"There is an alien race out here in the void," Nichols says. They've made their way to Rick's Cafe in Casablanca. They're the only two coloured people in there. That is to say, everyone else is in black and white. As befits the ambience, the two of them are wearing cocktail dresses. Well, they started off as cocktail dresses, but Jamelia's is becoming increasingly Bogartesque.

"Well, maybe it's a philosophy. Maybe it's a rampant offshoot of imperialistic 1800s Technocrats who got lost out here, became creatures native to this place and now have erased all mark of their history. Maybe they're a remnant of the Order of Reason blossoming in 1500s Japan where the native Japanese leapt for firearms and developed advanced and sophisticated techniques before a counter-reformation by people you'd describe as 'Traditionalists' eradicated their blossoming and left them the society which'd be opened up by American gunboat diplomacy. Maybe it doesn't matter.

"The point remains, these... Heighden - as other people call them - are ferociously independent, sociopathically attached to the promise of reward, and will do almost anything for money. So far they've played all sides in the great war going on in the void. They've worked for Threat Null, for various alien races, and even for the Void Engineers. Though the Engineers sometimes have problems meeting their demands, because - as mentioned - they're basically a bunch of sociopathic assholes as self-centred as a gyroscope and totally in love with themselves."

Jamelia raises her eyebrows. "You sound bitter," she remarks.

"Yeah, no shit, Bond. I spent some time back in the seventies handling contact with the Heighden." Nichols shakes her head, her ponytail flipping behind her. "They will literally turn on you a week after they helped you cleanse an bioplague outbreak because someone offered them more money. They're like..."

"Syndics?"

"That's the word! They're sociopathic materialistic assholes. Syndics. Except they're an inhuman - or maybe once-human, it's kind of a bit vague there - race whose small fire teams can wipe out the entire crew of a QLM. So they're basically what Enforcers want to be when they grow up."

"Charming," Jamelia remarks. Something about Nichols' manner is certainly reminding her of someone else, but it isn't clicking.

"You said it." Nichols slams back a drink. "Now, the problem is that the Residents have the most money in the game at the moment, and they're going around throwing around contracts for the Heighden. And the Residents are better at being sociopathic assholes. Also have binding contracts. That's a biggy. Usually it's a bitch keeping those asshole Heighden from just swapping sides to whoever pays better. But I shouldn't make it sound like they're just like Syndics. They also have a primitive and stupid sense of 'honour' they like to proclaim about how they seek 'balance'. You know, like really obnoxious Traditionalists tend to, which is part of the reason I sort of hold to the theory that they're a once-human offspring of some Order-slash-Akashic fusion. But their 'balance' largely consists of 'if you mess with us, we'll smash your face in'. Which is honestly how most honour works in primitive cultures, but I digress."

Jamelia tilts her glass at Catherine. "That must have made you Traditionalist friends."

"Shockingly, you know that people apart from the New World Order know how to not actually say things to the face of some homocidal Euthanatos with earrings shaped like ankhs," Nichols retorts. "Clearly you've been spending too long around Iterators if you think otherwise. And speaking of Iterators, aforementioned space cyborg assholes have one of their superweapon fortresses in the area."

The Operative sighs. She can see where this is going. And that her spirit guide appears to be a cantankerous old woman, which is... well, actually less annoying than dealing with Senex and his compulsive obfuscation. "So you want me to make the Autopolitans attack the Heighden to ruin the attempts of the Residents to use them and channel these loot-obsessed murderous sociopaths into attacking the space cyborg murderous sociopaths," she says.

"Well spoken, as befits a compulsive liar murderous sociopath. It should be well within your talents." She mockingly applauds. "You get bonus points if you can also blow up the Autopolitan mothership," she adds.
 
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