NationStates Jolt Archive

Production Thread
Hello all. I've just re-returned to NS after a few weeks break. As such, my disappearance somehow caused a "slow" [read: stoppage] in the RPs I had created and was the moderator of (not to worry Tan, they will soar once more). In addition, a couple of the other RPs I was involved in are dying due to other member disappearances. Now, I have been watching the II and NS forums for a good thread to join in, but alas it was not to be. Thus I decided to pursue a new RP of my own, unfortunately I was having trouble thinking of a good one. I had a few small ideas or little concepts, scenes, backgrounds to set them around, but nothing major.

As a result, I began looking through all of my "stuff" (info, threads, etc.) to get some ideas and I came up with a few small ones. In a moment, I will present them below. They are generally based around something related to the Dominion, but are purely character RPs. What I want is some feedback on the idea, the viability, the interest, etc. If you see one you love and want to participate in, please tell me. If you want me to change something in the idea, say so. Or if you have your own idea altogether, feel free to share. Most of these ideas are for just a couple of RPers, but since I have no characters or details in mind, if you can convince me of something, I'm game.

I have a couple other ideas that I have not listed mainly because they seem to be more of story threads (i.e. me only) and because they are much bigger than I am interested in getting involved in right now. A couple of thee below I think are interesting while others are just very basic ideas without much foundation to build anything. However, seeing as it’s my country most of these are based around, you all might not find them quite as interesting.

Life in Space
-Background: Project Gemini (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=540716)
-Time Period: 2030-2066 (most likely late 30s)
-Synopsis: With Project Gemini breathing life back into the Dominion's space program, a new migration began with an estimated 60 million people to space habitats. Such a change in setting provides immense opportunities but it also very unsettling. The RP would most likely focus around an individual's journey to a space colony and the new life s/he begins there.
-Details: It probably wouldn't be terribly long and most likely only requires one or two other RPers.

Money for the Mafia
-Background: Sanctum Mafia (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=524787)
-Time Period: 1980-2015
-Synopsis: A while back I created a large mafia group in my nation, but due to high police presence in the Dominion it was situated offshore. Unfortunately, I never did anything with them. They sat idly by. Now is the chance to create a story of intrigue, riches, and danger. I don't have any specific plot yet, but it could be anything from smuggling, black market, other crime, mystery, mafia battle, religion based, etc. It could revolve around the whole organization or just a small branch as well as domestically or in a foreign country (yours?).
-Details: Not many details to give without any idea of a plot. I might adjust the stats (lower) I gave on the background page for the plot.

Breakthrough in Brookings
-Background: The Brookings Institute (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=547331)
-Time Period: 2015-2025
-Synopsis: The Brookings Institute is the preeminent "think tank" and research center in the Dominion, home to many of the nation's and world's brightest minds. And now the next great scientific breakthrough is about to be achieved there.
-Details: What the breakthrough is, whose it is, and what its impact will be are all up in the air.

Colonial Rush
-Background: None
-Time Period: 1600s, 1800s, or 2000-2020
-Synopsis: Standard or some sort of variation on the discovery of a new colony. New land found, people rush for it and claim for their country. Sounds kind of boring on its face, but I haven't added any colonies in a while, so I thought it may be time.
-Details: The details, which are none at the moment, is where I think it can get interesting. Maybe the terrain makes vehicles impossible. Locals attack. New disease strikes. Secret terrorist base lies within. Etc. Have any ideas?

Sport of Swords: Slu'awl
-Background: Slu'awl is the ancient sport of sword fighting in the Dominion. It was one of the most popular and revered sports with its champions becoming legendary figures.
-Time Period: 1200-2100
-Synopsis: Sincerely, I have no idea. I just thought I could develop something around the sport, though what it is and how it could encompass more than a couple people, I don't know. It may simply be about the rise of a great champion sometime in the history of the Dominion.
-Details: Maybe you would play the rising champion. Seriously, no idea.

Clorik'Ean Revolt
-Background: During the five-year revolt more than a million people were killed. Shaelk Brinthormer led a separatist movement from the Supreme Ruler that had over a million followers (a lot back in the day). Brinthormer disapproved of the concentration of power in one man's hand and sought to either topple the government or create a new state. Such a secessionist plot, however, could not be allowed to continue. It was to be war.
-Time Period: 1351-1356
-Synopsis: Personally, I think this could be a particularly interesting one. The Revolt is a large part of the nation's history, but I've never written it out or given it much detail. Okay, so it’s probably less of a character thread than the others (though I would protest and say a good deal of it would be about the main characters involved in the Revolt), but the whole idea of it has peaked my interest. The Dominion is currently a very liberal nation, but it remains a dictatorship (albeit a benevolent one). Seven hundred years ago, Shaelk led a revolt for democracy but was crushed and is considered to be an evil character in history. Where does the truth lie?
-Details: Little besides the main character, the rationale, and the end are actually set in stone (Shaelk, Democracy, Failure). Everything else is up for sale. In fact, there could be splinter groups that emerge during the revolt to create more sides.

Secrets of the Special Forces
-Background: There are Fifteen "known" (not publicly) Special Force units in the military. They're missions are beyond classified but their swords cut up the history books.
-Time Period: 1950-2020
-Synopsis: Take on the role of a Dominion Special Forces operative as they carry out secret missions around the world. Any details of a mission are TBD.
-Details: Among the more interesting units: Delta Force (Standard), Hell's Wrath (Terrorist Unit), Rogue Force (Unknown), ELITE (Domestic Operations), and Executor Squad (Assassination).


So there you have it. Just some ideas that I had while looking through my junk. As you can tell, little detail is there, not much is very concrete, and even less has been well thought out (including this very thread). Interest, comments, ideas, etc. would be simply lovely.

Reserved

I would be interested in a Breakthrough at the Brookings Institute, and the Colony thread.

Count me in for the Breakthrough at Brookings Institute (BTW, do you want to play around with the character I have there who discovered teleportation?).

I'd also be interested in the Special Forces one, perhaps as a nation having operations done inside?

As for the mafia one, I think the AUM might have a bit of fun there...

The special forces one interests me, but I have no idea what they have or what they do.

The interest is appreciated and noted. Anyone have any ideas or things to flesh out any of the RPs?

Brookings Institue
- Man experimenting with Xi+ and Xi- particles.
- Finds strange results when measuring the time of collision reactions.
- Some other scientists stumble upon the experiment.
- Accident of some sort - system overload or whatnot with Xi+ particles (I'll handle all the scientific details).
- Basically what happens is that the overload causes the man's laboratory and all the people in it to be teleported. To where and (most importantly) when, they do not know.
- RP ends up as the people in the lab trying to get back, the only help being the Alfegan scientist brought along with them.

Special Forces Ops
- Introduction to the branch of special forces (let's say your foreign operations team).
- Word given to them of some sort of nuclear weapon being made in a third-world nation by a terrorist group - they're called in to sort it out.
- Very soon, they find they've bitten off much more than they can chew. As well as the raid on the compound where the device is being built going horribly wrong. Those injured start dying of a strange disease never encountered before. As the characters start falling under the influence of the deadly disease, they must try and find+destroy its source before it's all too late.

I like the special forces op one.

I'd quite like the Brookings one. I'll need some DMG names though.

@Alfegos: Interesting.

@Antigr: What do you mean names?

@All: We can do more than one at the same time if we get enough interest. We'll see.

I would definitely be interested in the Breakthrough in Brookings and Clorik'Ean Revolt RPs.

Special forces all the way. I also think the colony thread could be a good and long lasting RP if good people sign up. (Need to know more of the aspects of what living on it would be like)

More Interest

For those who cannot read white on white, he wrote "More Interest"

For those who cannot read white on white, he wrote "More Interest"

What? Who can't read white on white naturally.

[That was just a bump... as is this.]

I'm still kind of new, but i'd be interested in the Special Forces one. Maybe if you set it up so that one or two people from each member nations playing the RP are on the special forces team. Like one nation recruited from everywhere for the best talent and equipment for this special assignment, you know?

I'm still kind of new, but i'd be interested in the Special Forces one. Maybe if you set it up so that one or two people from each member nations playing the RP are on the special forces team. Like one nation recruited from everywhere for the best talent and equipment for this special assignment, you know?

If we did the Special Forces one, the number of people would depend on which Special Forces group we chose (for instance, Delta Force has 5 members, the Executor Squad has 7, but ELITE has considerably more). However, I might just have one character to a person. Also, they certainly wouldn't be from different nations. They'd all be Dominion people.

Read: CHARACTER BASED ROLEPLAY

Read: CHARACTER BASED ROLEPLAY

Whot??

Character Based Roleplay, It's basically what you described with the one-person thing.

Character Based Roleplay, It's basically what you described with the one-person thing.

Oh I know what one is (though character based roleplays have no limit on the number of characters really), I was just wondering why you decided to toss it out there.

I'm bored....

I think the speacial forces, and colonization ones have great promise. I have too many offsite RPs going for me to join anything major, but I could try.

I think the speacial forces, and colonization ones have great promise. I have too many offsite RPs going for me to join anything major, but I could try.

Cool. As I've said, these probably won't be "major," though I guess that depends on what you believe "major" to be.

I quite like the Idea for the Breakthrough at Brookings one. As for the Colony one, in my opinion, an extremely harsh terrain, with savage locals, and little infrastructure would be good. I'm thinking a cold climate, lots of snow to get in the way, and that the savage locals come along later in the RP, as people begin to explore inward towards the middle of the island. Also, maybe some natural phenomena that inhibits satellite communication, and causes allot of interference for regular radios, reducing their range, or some type of geographic anomaly that traps radio waves, boosting the range and power of singles coming in, but bouncing outgoing singles back in. Just an idea, be interesting for the colonies to know what is going on in the rest of the world, but for it to be very difficult for them to tell the rest of the world what is happening in the colonies.

For the special forces one, I'll do the nation the operation is occurring in/the bad guys. But what do you think of the scenario I gave for the special forces one people?

@Alfegos: Interesting.

@Antigr: What do you mean names?

@All: We can do more than one at the same time if we get enough interest. We'll see.

It's always difficult RPing someone of another nationality, unless I was to RP my own. So what kind of names and stuff do the people of you have?

Now I look I'm becoming more interested in the colonization RP.

It's always difficult RPing someone of another nationality, unless I was to RP my own. So what kind of names and stuff do the people of you have?
I agree, though they are normal people just like anyone else (any other trained killer, that is). Their names are pretty broad. There are some more "ethnic ones" (more of unique than ethnic), but plenty of people have names from all different cultures.

I quite like the Idea for the Breakthrough at Brookings one. As for the Colony one, in my opinion, an extremely harsh terrain, with savage locals, and little infrastructure would be good. I'm thinking a cold climate, lots of snow to get in the way, and that the savage locals come along later in the RP, as people begin to explore inward towards the middle of the island. Also, maybe some natural phenomena that inhibits satellite communication, and causes allot of interference for regular radios, reducing their range, or some type of geographic anomaly that traps radio waves, boosting the range and power of singles coming in, but bouncing outgoing singles back in. Just an idea, be interesting for the colonies to know what is going on in the rest of the world, but for it to be very difficult for them to tell the rest of the world what is happening in the colonies.
I like the idea. However, I'm unaware of a natural phenomena that interrupts satellite coverage, especially a strong signal. Any ideas? Alternatively, we could make it a unnatural interruption with some group jamming all signals on the island.

For the special forces one, I'll do the nation the operation is occurring in/the bad guys. But what do you think of the scenario I gave for the special forces one people?
It was interesting albeit a bit unorthodox.

Unorthadox is what you want, if you want a storyline that hasn't been done before.

Count me in on the colonisation thread (god, I'm looking at a lot of these!!)

I'm better at MT, but I'd like in on one of them.

Alright, considering I've gotten some interest in a couple of these. I may just go ahead and start an Sign-Up/OOC thread for one or two of them. I'll do a little more thinking about the plot et al, but I'll be sure to take into count your comments.

Money for the Mafia, Breakthrough in Brookings, a historical (16 or 1800's) Colonial Rush, Sport of Swords: Slu'awl, Clorik'Ean Revolt, and Secrets of the Special Forces all attract my interest.

EDIT: I'd recommend all of them (including the colonial one) be more character-based than country-based.

Well, eventually we might get to all of them, but I'll pick one or two to start right now.

I guess someone could be jamming it. I was just thinking of some kind of atmospheric thing, but I really don't know that much about things like that, just though it would be interesting.

I've been busy coming home from the summer and then getting ready to move in for college in a couple days. Sorry all.

Don't worry. I'm off for a week on Wednesday ,so try to delay new threads to 26/8/08. Thanks!

I'll continue working out some ideas. I was thinking about blending a couple of them together... maybe even three.

Will it blend? Maybe a good idea, maybe not. Try not to get too many ideas from BL.

IDEA
Well, we'll see. I'll toss something out here for discussion and if people like it, we will run with it. If people don't, we can adjust it or scrap it.

It all revolves around a frigid little island with mountainous terrain and a harsh winter.
Now to disrupt signals (all of them), we need some type of phenomenon. I'm no expert, so I'm just going to make something up and if someone wants to make it more real, please just say so. I''m sure this is at least somewhat related to science: Some weeks, months or years earlier, a coronal mass ejection was launched from the sun and inevitably reached earth; while the normal effects were felt, a small portion of the plasma broke all the way through the atmosphere and to where this island lays in the ocean. The result was that much of the area and surrounding material became ionized, causing disruption in any attempted communications (electronics don't work there).

So, that's the setting. Next the plot(s).

Before anybody else came upon the island, the Sanctum Mafia discovered it and quickly identified its unique properties. While it is unknown what their purpose is there, it can be assumed they desire the area for its off-the-grid location. They have set up a small base and secretly moved in a force to protect the area. (Now I personally am not sure what I want their motive there to be, but either I can take suggestions or I can make it myself and keep it a secret. Or both, if someone TGs me something interesting.)

En route to the Kingdom of <insert_name>, a Dominion Special Forces transport plane, flying low over the water encounters the ionized air, causing massive electronics failure. The plane crashes into the island, they obviously have no way of communicating home, and the only thing that is known is that the plane never reached its destination. They must struggle to survive and get home, but then one way or another, the Mafia is encountered. What will happen?

Now that there could be it or I could add this other part. Up to you guys. I'm not quite sure how it will happen yet, but somehow other nations [i.e. you guys] will become interested in the area and send a small force to investigate. One possible scenario is that after the special forces' plane goes down, the Dominion sends a small dedicated fleet to investigate - this act, discovered by spy satellites of you guys, is watched carefully. You may have assets in the area (though remember it is probably a place not near much civilization) which cause you to mobilize a small force in defense or maybe you are watch your satellites and then suddenly you can't see my ships anymore (thus suspecting something, you send people to investigate).

It would be a two part plot for all of us. We would each take a member or two of the special forces team and then our own countries if we so desired to get involved. Then the Mafia, controlled by me (but if you want a character in it, be my guest), would get involved somehow. I would think that we would keep the forces not too large and remember that most electronics won't work (so sending a helicopter is a bad idea).

So, that's the idea. Please comment, criticize, add, subtract, whatever.

Coronal Mass Ejection wont really work TBH. It takes about 12 minutes to reach the earth, and any major effects would only be noticed near the poles. Plus if a lump of plasma did get through, we'd know about it. Since it would be ZOMG RADIATION KILLZ MOST OF NORTHERN HEMISPHERE, as the amount of stuff getting through would either be nothing or bloody enormous.

What we could do though is install a signal jammer. Maybe have it as an old electronic warfare testing site of X nations, which the Mafia took over after it was left abandoned, and pretty much forgotten when X nation collapsed. If it was running off, say, an automated power collection thingy (nuclear batteries?), a large-scale jammer would work for ages. Maybe the plane was approaching the side of the island where counter-counter measures were being tested, making the instruments go barmy and making it crash into a mountain or something on the island in a storm.

Just a thought.

I'm not seeing why how long it takes to get to earth matters, but regardless I've heard it is more in the range of a couple days, not twelve minutes. It is actually matter that is being transmitted, not just light waves. Anyhow, we have just begun to detect CMEs in recent years. The whole "lump of plasma getting through"... not quite as extreme as you say. It's essentially just ionized gasses and free electrons. And I'm not sure why it would be either nothing at all or essentially everything that gets through. It could be just enough to break a hole in the ionosphere that the last bit of ejected material can fly through. And the effects of a storm are not just felt at the poles (those are just the auroras).

However, I am willing to forgo all of the discussion and argument and change it to something along the lines of what you say. However, I am not sure what the affects of electronic warfare are on non communication satellites (i.e. we could probably all see the island and what is going on).

This, however, brings up another question in my mind. Is the Special Forces team on its way to another mission or are they tracking the Mafia unaware of the island's previous purpose?

I know about the ionised gas stuff. Thing is though the effect of the cosmic particles is just an electrical effect on power cables near the poles (canada and that). Still, jammer is better. It would work, if set to the right frequency, on all things in the area: what it would do is not stop signals coming out, but turn them into gibberish.

Maybe they are tracking the mafia, I dunno. You're the storyline author.

This does sound interesting. Maybe X nation was also attempting to create a device that could electronically hide things from Satellites, which would cover the island, just an idea. Also, I think it would be interesting, if a yacht, from my nation, got lost at sea, and crashed on said island. Stranding Mr. Jimmy James, richest man in my nation at sea. Three to four survivors tops. On a final note, once the whole situation with the Mafia is over, a team from the Brookings institute, could be sent in, to try and find out why communications are disrupted one the island.

I'm just going to leave the past argument where it is. I don't feel like arguing little points.

As to man made interference, we can run with that. It isn't actually that hard to disrupt satellite operations in a certain area, so I'll deal with that. Let's say it was an old, secret electronic warfare base that was abandoned after country X lost a war; the Mafia discovered it and revved it back up to full working conditions. Now their purpose is unknown. The Special Forces team crashed into a mountain and are forced to survive there.

Beatus, you can have your yacht land there if you want, but it may very well turn into a war zone (and it will most certainly be a dangerous zone with the Mafia there).

I was also thinking about tying Brookings in, but just to have them discover the interference would be a bit of overkill. It wouldn't be that hard to discover or even hypothesize what was going on once you saw everything there. But maybe I'll throw in a twist with Brookings.

I'm just going to leave the past argument where it is. I don't feel like arguing little points.

As to man made interference, we can run with that. It isn't actually that hard to disrupt satellite operations in a certain area, so I'll deal with that. Let's say it was an old, secret electronic warfare base that was abandoned after country X lost a war; the Mafia discovered it and revved it back up to full working conditions. Now their purpose is unknown. The Special Forces team crashed into a mountain and are forced to survive there.

Beatus, you can have your yacht land there if you want, but it may very well turn into a war zone (and it will most certainly be a dangerous zone with the Mafia there).

I was also thinking about tying Brookings in, but just to have them discover the interference would be a bit of overkill. It wouldn't be that hard to discover or even hypothesize what was going on once you saw everything there. But maybe I'll throw in a twist with Brookings.

Mr. James' posse will be well armed, and his body guards will be the best of the best.

Mr. James' posse will be well armed, and his body guards will be the best of the best.

Fine with me. I'm sure if they stay out of trouble they'll easily be able to survive. Just know that if they do get into trouble, they'll be facing off against battalion size forces.

Fine with me. I'm sure if they stay out of trouble they'll easily be able to survive. Just know that if they do get into trouble, they'll be facing off against battalion size forces.

Well, those battalion sized forces would need to find 4 men in the jungle, which will be heavily booby-trapped, once the party learns of hostile force on the island. These men are no stranger to guerrilla warfare, they fought in a bloody revolution to over throw a king, not four years ago.

Okay, rather than waiting for anymore input. I'm going to start the OOC/Sign-Up thread with all the details. Standby.

Are you going to link to here?

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b360/DMG2005/Electronic-Interference.jpg (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=563500)

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b360/DMG2005/Electronic-Interference.jpg (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=563500)

Very theatrical.

[OOC: Sorry about this, just a glorified tag so I can keep track of the thread. The subscription feature is annoying and less than practical. Well, says my email spam filter. DMG - I'm quite interested in the above link, which I've posted in, and also the colonisation thread, preferably MT as in right now or 1800s. I don't know 1600s tech.
I'd quite like it as you said, countries rushing in and claiming bits of land. However, more than four participants, in my opinion, would be not only unreal, but impractical]

Well, the colonization thread probably won't happen for a couple weeks if I do start it, so I have plenty of time to figure that out. However, people should feel free to treat EI in part like a colonization RP where they are vying for the island and research facility.