Player Input Needed On Resolving January Event

[trpmods]

Alright all.

You've had some time to look over the January event and learn the sorts of tensions that have been boiling up among the Agrii. So now the question comes to the fore.

What do you do about it?


The decisions players make in the face of what has passed will affect the future arcs of the game. So we encourage players to take the time here to share the information their characters learned, discuss the meaning of it in relationship to what was learned from November's event, and discuss what path they want to take.

At the moment the Mods see three possible actions for the players to take. That does not mean these are all of the options, and we will respect whatever the majority of the players choose. There will be a poll post put up later this week to help resolve the question. But for now we see these options:

1. Resettle Agrii on Agra-10. This would require the storms tapering off a bit more and then bringing Agrii down in phases. He Rows would have to help make the city more suitable for their use and teach them how to work together as a society. This may also require making peace between them and various plantkin species.

2. Investigate whether the Agrii are from another place entirely. Information gained in November seems to imply that the Agrii population was moved to this planet rather than being native. If so, He Rows could potentially see about finding their true origins to help decide what the proper long term answer may be.

3. Give the Agrii all of the information you have gathered and ask them to make the choice. He Rows have gained a lot of information about the Agrii and their history with Agra-10. About how they were brought here, about how they were trained to serve a relatively unknown purpose, about how their food is being laced with sedatives, about a lot of things really. There is always the option of presenting all of this to the Agrii people and seeing what they want to do with what you have learned. Of course one does not know with their recent violence how this might play out.

4. Kick the metaphorical can down the road. This is the 'wait and see' method. Basically He Rows do what they can to resolve current tensions, then set about their own purposes. For those who don't really know what would be best or who maybe want more data before deciding anything.

Please use this post (and only this post, we want all players to have access no matter where they normally gather) to discuss a) what information your characters have found, b) their IC opinion on what they would want, and c) your OOC opinion on what you'd like.

We want to make player desire an important part of this, and if the majority of in character opinions want one option but the majority of out of character opinions want another, we'll find a way to defer to the OOC choice because that will always be 1 player 1 vote as opposed to potentially being weighted toward players with more characters.


Also, we are very happy to welcome player ideas for other methods their characters would put forth to resolve the issue. You're creative people, and you or your characters may think of angles we were not prepared for but would be happy to facilitate.



Good Day, He Rows, and please, discuss.

Comments

[faceguy]

My $.02:

For his part, Leo is pretty firmly in wait and see. From a moral standpoint, he thinks they have to tell the Agrii all the info they have eventually and bring them into the decision making process, but he’s also not sure telling them right now is a solid idea. Maybe try to get the factions a bit more under control, then bring it up. Leo would also likely be pro-finding the Agrii home world over all, since he’s been confused why the Agrii are so dead set on Agra-10 this whole time, but they would have to learn where it is and what state it’s in first. Wouldn’t want to send the Agrii back to a doomed planet after all the work they’ve been doing to save them! And he would definitely be in favor of a space trip to find and scout the planet, which OOCly I also think would be fun.

My OOC opinion though is that… this game has been going a long time, and a lot of players and characters have done a lot of work to try and fix the planet they’ve been stuck on. Roads have been built, electrical grids gotten up and running, food cultivated, etc. So I’m not sure if for players, abandoning the planet and effectively throwing that work in the trash (especially because the actual natives of the planet don’t seem to need any of it) would be narratively fulfilling.

I acknowledge I’ve been here a relatively short time compared to others, though, so I’ll defer on this one to older players. If most others OOCly have no problem going to a new setting then I have no problem with it! That’s just where my thoughts are right now.

So yeah I guess I’m in camp wait and see for both me and Leo

[unclenotapervert]

My character hasn't gained much in info/still in thread to do so, and even if he did, he'd opt for #4

OOC, I'd prefer #2

[target_audience]

Nobody cares what either of my characters think, but OOC I am intrigued by Dandy's suggestion that Option 2 means changing the structure of the game in general to go on a planet-finding adventure. My vote is for Dandy.2.

I'm on hiatus but-

[the_freak]

IC I think it goes without saying that whatever the option my characters would ask the Agrii what they wanted. However, I think if presented with all the gathered knowledge, they would also elect to ask the planet's true inhabitants what they wanted, rather than just plopping a foreign species down in their land and being like deal with it.

OOC I'm on hiatus for the next two months, so I can't really direct any of this with my characters. I would ultimately personally blend 2&3, and pursue returning the Agrii to their original home. I assume that would then involve the same making sure whatever's happened since they were taken hasn't resulted in us returning them to a space that is now home to others who we are displacing.

But yeah, I'm not here, you'll all have to work this out. Good luck.

[thepurpleone]

Donnie for the record hates all this. XD

He doesn't see any simple solution, there are bits and pieces of each option that he would agree to but he ultimately thinks that anything without additional parameters in consideration will end up being more damaging than not doing anything at all (which isn't even an option he's considering because this is Donnie, he can't just ignore a problem.)

While he wants to tell the Agrii, or at least feels they should know about what they found out, he also feels they need more information to give a proper report. They've only found out one side of things.

Also, just because the Agrii are Agrii and some are reverting instinctual behaviors, doesn't mean they'll all function well back with their own people. These Agrii were made, they're their own kind, and even if it was for terrible reasons, they didn't ask to become this but it's what and who they have come to be, and they have their own society and have gotten by as such. Donnie likens it to his and Leo's own existence- they didn't ask to be what they are but if someone else had it their way then they'd be destroying humans. But they've been given another option they otherwise wouldn't have.

Would all the Agrii become as violent as Mu Ly and the Orange faction if they weaned themselves off the peanut butter stuff? How chaotic would that be? They don't have the answers. He'd propose tests, data collection based off samples (he's suggested blood and brain scans to Leo) from the more aggressive Agrii and the non-aggressive, get medical to see if there are drastic differences etc. There's no guarantee that even the Agrii tending back to their original instincts will be able to survive and interact right with their own people if they find their actual home planet (which Donnie thinks couldn't hurt to look into).

He also thinks that the option for them to actually make Temba home is reasonable, but they'll have to be able to coexist with the Plantkins, and that means they need to get used to interacting with more than just the He Rows. But this could be an option for the Agrii in the case that they would prefer to live as they have felt most comfortable, if not just to reacclimate themselves to a planet with actual terrain than a ship. Otherwise they'd just get eaten up by other species or something.

SO...let me see if I can narrow this down. Donnie does not think this is a simple matter of choosing one direction, it should be more like a selection of which steps to take first. The Agrii are also very much a part of things, and he doesn't think that keeping them out of the loop is good either. If it were him then he'd want to know what was going on, and merely offering support won't be enough without answers. "Wait and See" doesn't exactly sound accurate either since there's definitely need to do something in the interim. Hence a proposal for a blend of operations:

- Proposal to inform the Agrii of findings. Probably kept to a select few, the faction heads (yes, he's included Mu Ly in this because it's only fair, provided he be willing to listen and hear everything out). Key points to be made would basically be what's been mentioned above (they may have been changed from their origins, but in this they've also established their own version of people etc etc I'll hold off on a speech).

- Offer of support as together further answers are sought and decisions made. Suggestion of becoming acquainted with the Plantkin and slow introduction to Temba as the storms lessen, so the Agrii know what to expect of life on a planet versus life on a ship.

- Proposal to have freedom to go between planets and ship, and to use ships for further exploration, to seek out answers regarding Agrii origins (for those who may be curious and wish to actually rejoin their native kind).

- Also finding that thing that got taken so they can go home might be nice, just throwing that out there...

- Addendum to having freedom to space travel, looking into the transmission source that has been sending and receiving data externally from the ship and Temba.

....wow sorry that was long, this is Donnie of course. That was all IC. Cayde and Cal would not be nearly as long-winded there, haha, although Cal would mention the ...was it a singing star, they called it? Since he's been slingshotted between updates I'm sticking with that. Cayde is along for the ride, ultimately he'd still like to go put a bullet into whoever decided this all was a good idea.

OOCly I'm not making this any easier hahaha XD but it more or less adheres to the above.

[tempredmental]

Keith is okay with exploring and trying to find where the Agrii might be originally from. Yes, he had some ties to the planet, but those are gone now, and he's going to get jumpy being stuck there too long at this rate.

He's been doing a lot of speculating since they found and shared all that data. People have been asking him a lot about Drift Fleet because of the ties mentioned in the data, and it's bringing back a lot of memories for him. He has a great visual memory... names, not so much. But, that said, he tends to arrange his notes for himself in a very visual way to help him remember better.

(I've been digging through old game stuff a lot lately. It's been kind of a fun trip down memory lane for myself, too.)

His recent thoughts are if the AI on the Agrii ship is somehow related in some way to original (and now missing) singing core that Ga Re had attempted to use to send them home, but couldn't because it disappeared. He's not quite sure if the Atroma are still involved in the Agrii situation at all because they hadn't been when it came to fixing the Marsiva and the Fleet he'd been a part of. He does remember the link between the singing cores of the large Atroma ships, and the singing planets, about how the Marsiva was looking forward to "growing up" into a planet.

What Keith was able to discover from the Warrens was this:

With Piloting Keith will be able to access a secondary computer system. Lacking Communications he will not be able to read the information in the system, but he will still have some level of understanding for it. More information can be unlocked with help from someone with Communications if they are not more busy with their own work. Keith will be able to almost 'instinctively' delve into the systems and discover that the Agrii ship actually has a lot of its piloting functions influenced from this system. In addition the limitation of the He Row ships on their flight paths is controlled by this system which is hacking the He Row ships to constrain their movement. Finally, Keith will discover that there is something irregular about the orbit of the moon, but not be able to determine what that is.

That said, he knows that the Agrii deserve to know what's happening, but he's not sure they're ready to receive that information, yet.

As for me, I'm pretty flexible, but I like the idea of exploring new areas. I feel like it'll give the game a boost with new things and events, kind of like when we were jumping around a bit early on. Reading some of the old stuff brings back a lot of cool memories, and it was one of the things about Drift Fleet that I had enjoyed. There was a new place to explore each event. I know that can be a lot of work for the mods, as I remember being a part of that towards the end of the game. But, it was fun to write for as a player.

[thelastechidna]

Definitely a lot to think about!

Radley and Knuckles would both be kind of frustrated for their work on the planet to be for naught, but they also wouldn't want to possibly cause problems for the Plantkin by introducing the Agrii if the species would have a difficult time adjusting/getting along/whatnot. Knuckles is more likely to feel they should just stick to the original plan (1), while Radley is unsure and doesn't know what to decide (4).

Sephiroth doesn't really have ties to the planet much and wants to learn everything about the Agrii, where they came from, and what happened with the original planet they were from. He feels they would need more information before deciding whether or not to go ahead with the original plan of getting them back to this planet or to try to put them on their original planet. Or maybe even, them staying on that winter planet he heard about would be the best option. He's a mix of options 2 and 4. And he would like most of Donnie's suggestions.

Radley and Seph are agreed that with things as they currently are, the Agrii are really not in any kind of emotional state to hear all that they've learned, although Seph might consider talking to the faction leaders alone, as Donnie suggested. Knuckles thinks they all deserve to know, which they do, just ... probably not yet.

OOCly, it would be fun if there was a little more exploration. I'm still kind of sad I just missed the FFXIV trip, lol. Would love to be part of a visit to a planet from something I'm familiar with, like FF or Star Wars. Overall, at this point in the game, I'm probably a mix of 2 and 4.