Aberrant RPG - A question about Theatus

[Cin]

Okay, I have to ask something here. How do so many of you In Character know of Theatus and Ozaki when there are a few dozen people or so, at most by canon, that know of her existance?

[Fortune's Son]

To be honest, Jack hasn't got the slightest idea who Lucinda is talking about, why she's proud of having murdered them, why there is no way they could have been 'innocent', or just what the big deal is all about. He's never heard the word Proteus in anything other than a garbled transmission, and is aware that PU has a dirty tricks squad but what organization of similar stature wouldn't?

From Jack's point of view Lucinda has basically said; a couple of spooks got offed by another spook... excuse me, a cleaner... and the world has gone on it's merry way. Hence the reason Lucinda was referred to as an 'assassin by trade'. When she claimed she had acted in self-defense he wondered briefly if Ozaki and Thetis thought the same thing but it's a question he'll never know the answer to.

Jack believes that Project Utopia is riddled with corruption, but this is in the same way that people believe all politicians to be liars. Often true, not completely, and no real proof.

I'm curious though. Why would Lucinda have mentioned them by name if she didn't believe anyone would recognize the names?

[ 05-28-2002: Message edited by: Jack Chance ]

[Hugin]

Well, how do you know about them? Pretty much the same way for the rest of us. However, we don't mention their names openly. We also don't claim to have whacked major canon characters. This is a collaborative effort in the forums and while we don't have a moderator we do try to self edit when it comes to certain activities, like killing off major canon characters.

I tried to send you a private message about this but apparently those aren't working right now, I keep getting error messages. So, I am sorry about bringing this up in public.

We've had some cool posters stop posting here because the collaborative aspect prevented them from fully playing their characters that had a rich table top history. Hell, Prodigy, in his table top history killed Chiraben, raided Bahrain, was involved in a public outing of Proteus (which as players we never actually identified by name, just their existence.) and the resulting killing of Corbin and jump started the Aberrant Wars by a couple decades. However, when on the Forums I don't assume any of those. It messes with the ability of Jager, Jack Chance, Jordan Rossi, Ashnod and others to have their place in the environment and remain true to their characters.

Fact is, I don't have any power here. I ain't saying you can't say what you have said. That's not my place. We've just been pretty much playing things loosey goosey here and try not to step on each other's toes too much. Hell, it was just a few weeks ago that someone even got around to setting a date.

[Cin]

Why did she say it? Mainly she was "fishing" so to speak. Checking to see how much people knew about Proteus. She also knew that it wouldn't mean anything to those people not in the know. As far as killing canon charaters and stating it here, I believe that Jack or Jager did a good job of keeping it doubtful with a "But I have heard other reposrts of her demise" line. I have no inteion OOC of stepping on toes and making a big fuss about certain canon things so I'll make sure to avoid it.

In the game I play in, Cin has killed both of them, and actually got Theatus in Bahrain with the help of Pax, Lighting and Montresiour (or whoever you spell it) and even killed Shrapnel. She founded her own philosphy called Divergance, and helps to spred it through a clinc/institue she founded with a friend called the Omni Developental Institue for Novas or "ODIN" for short. She has peole there to talk about Terras, Exemplaism and Divergence and lets people make up there own mind on what they believe. ODIN helps any nova who needs it, regardless of affilation. She is also good friends with Splash and Orziz and has Met Mal on a few occasions. Mal apparently wants Cin to join the Terragen and take the new handle of "Death" as one of his four horsemen. Belh, thats just some highlights.

Anyways.. thanks for the info.

[Hugin]

Quote:

Originally posted by Cin:
Why did she say it? Mainly she was "fishing" so to speak. Checking to see how much people knew about Proteus. She also knew that it wouldn't mean anything to those people not in the know. As far as killing canon charaters and stating it here, I believe that Jack or Jager did a good job of keeping it doubtful with a "But I have heard other reposrts of her demise" line. I have no inteion OOC of stepping on toes and making a big fuss about certain canon things so I'll make sure to avoid it.

In the game I play in, Cin has killed both of them, and actually got Theatus in Bahrain with the help of Pax, Lighting and Montresiour (or whoever you spell it) and even killed Shrapnel. She founded her own philosphy called Divergance, and helps to spred it through a clinc/institue she founded with a friend called the Omni Developental Institue for Novas or "ODIN" for short. She has peole there to talk about Terras, Exemplaism and Divergence and lets people make up there own mind on what they believe. ODIN helps any nova who needs it, regardless of affilation. She is also good friends with Splash and Orziz and has Met Mal on a few occasions. Mal apparently wants Cin to join the Terragen and take the new handle of "Death" as one of his four horsemen. Belh, thats just some highlights.

Anyways.. thanks for the info.

Cool, glad to know that I didn't come off like a complete dick and that you got what I was trying to get across. Glad to have another poster on board.

You'd have to be careful about mentioning Thetis' name though. Especially if you were willing to accept that she might not actually be croaked. She strikes me as a mildly vengeful bitch. To be honest, considering her experience, her power, and her passion, she has never struck me as particularly intelligent. Her major problem seems to be as much as she fears and distrusts the potential of Novas, at the same time she has trouble realizing exactly what they are capable of.

[Fortune's Son]

Must have been Jager since Jack knows nothing of her. And since I forgot to say this before; welcome to the forums!

[Kirby1024]

OK, Let's list 'em:

Alex McKenzie - Has inkling of Proteus's existence (or something like it), due to his researches, and a knowledge that most conspiracy theories tend to have a kernel of truth in them somewhere. Has no concrete knowledge whatsoever. Were he ever actually told, his reaction would probably be along the lines of "That explains a few things..."

Sydney "Photon" Holland - Knows nothing. Not an iota. Were he told, would likely be very surprised, shocked and dismayed. But, he is an independant, he'd just likely sever the few contacts he has to Utopia.

Teknokat - Knows more than an inkling. Technically knows more than Alex, but is still in the process of putting the pieces together. A recent thread post between 'Kat and Prodigy revealed that she's fully aware of the "de-nova-isation" of history, as of yet, is not sure who is responsible. Were she told, reaction would be along the lines of "I KNEW IT!!!"

(Non-playing NPC) Dr. Leonard Kopulski (Director, Project Pandorra) - Knows Everything, or close to it. Hell, knows Thetis's real name. One of the perks of having friends on the AEon Board of Directors, dontcha know. Quite smug in the knowledge that right now, Pandorra has a lower profile than Proteus. Hates Thetis, has a strong Dislike of Ozaki.

There are some other elements of Kopulski and Pandorra that I may weave into future stories, but at the moment I'll keep you all guessing. Oh, and no, I haven't quite decided in my world what Thetis's real name is. That just about wraps up my characters for the moment.

[Jager]

Actually, Cin, I was about to run with this angle. Let me know what you think about it and see if we can merge some of your history into the board continium.

Cin didn't kill the 'real' Theatus. She was led to believe by someone that she got the real one, but for canon continiuty, it shouldn't be so. 'T' is one of the major players in their storyline, as is Proteus.

Anyway...

1. Cin was set up to want T and Proteus dead and destroyed.

2. Cin begins getting information that leads her and her group to into conflict with something the deem to be Proteus and begin cleaning their clocks.

3. Let's say that T decides to sacrifice Ozaki's existance by A) having you kill him, or having you kill the someone you think is Ozaki so that he can go into deep cover.

4. Finally T goes to a place "where she would think she would never be gotten to" and you kill her.

5. You, who have no ties to PU start leaking it to the boards that T is dead. You see, few if any people go looking for dead people. People like Jager and Prodigy (through his Casablanca contacts) would check you out to see that you were legit and we would find out that you are.

6. Now that most of the world that knew of her existance thinks that she is dead, T can get back to the business of running an ultra-secret intelligence network.

Its a reversal of the Trojan Horse gambit and can be very successful. After all, you probably splattered your T all over the room, right? After all, if you shot her, there shouldn't be much of anything left. Certainly, Pax and Montressor aren't going to say anything about setting up an assassination because they're still good little Utopians.

The same trick has been used with Chiraben before. Some folks would claim to have killed him and then others would claim that this couldn't be the case because they just fought the little SOB last week. The boards sort of worked it out that their was more than one Chiraben, so to speak. In character, we never completely figured out what the trick was. It could have been:

1. That they cloned him numerous times,

2. He was a personality overlay that Proteus put over brainwashed novas,

or..

3. He was a body-jumper capable of permanently possessing other novas.

In-Character, we never needed to know the answer. It wasn't relevent.

Back to Cin's story.

If we go with this, Cin has to figure out who set her up (if she comes to believe she was dupped in the first place). Was someone close to her setting her up, or was that someone simple gettng bad information. This conspiracy could run several layers deep, with your closest associates all believing that they helped you do the deed. You may have never even met your 'handler'. If the handler's smart, they have since moved on in some manner (faked death, workng for another branch of Utopia or the Teragen, or simply disappeared).

As always, let me know what you think. Look at my profile, if you want to contact me, and the privat messaging service still isn't working.

[Cin]

One quick note to everybody that jumped on Cin about the whole Theatus and Ozaki thing. Cin never said those names here untill somebody *cough, cough* 'Prodigy' *cough, cough* alluded to it. It was origanally stated in the Players forum under "tell us about your character" which I thought was OOC.

[Hugin]

Quote:

Originally posted by Cin:
One quick note to everybody that jumped on Cin about the whole Theatus and Ozaki thing. Cin never said those names here untill somebody *cough, cough* 'Prodigy' *cough, cough* alluded to it. It was origanally stated in the Players forum under "tell us about your character" which I thought was OOC.

Ok, gonna have to come to my defense here. On the 'What about heroes' thread, your third posting, you state "I've assassinated people since my erruption, some of whom we're possiably innocent, though I can never know for sure. I've broken laws in various countries and did all sorts of things that I am not too thrilled about. Do I regret them? No. But even after all that, alot of people, many of them novas, still call me a hero. I dunno." From this I got that your character had commited mulitiple assasinations, not two. In order to try to provide a little dramatic tension I, as Prodigy, stated that yes, two (of the supposed many) victims were indeed innocent. Something which you alluded to as possible. You then turn around and state that you *only ever killed two people since eruption*, something quite to the contrary of what you had already stated. You then bring up Ozaki and Thetis' names, not I.

I was only trying to engage in some interaction with your character. Sorry if that went badly, but I was only reacting to what you had written.

I merely played Prodigy as I have been in the past. He has a network of information that is available to him and I was trying to use that to interact, thats all.

Since so much has been written its a little late to edit what was done. Anyway, from what I can see, only two or three responses were made to your particular claim, hardly a shitstorm of attacks. Perhaps we can just let it pass?

[Cin]

Ahh.. I'm not mad at all. It just clicked that hadn't said it IC utill you mentioned that two were innocent. I think it must have been that yous "two" were innocent. If you had said three or four or some other nuumber, It prolly would have went differently. As far as the rest, it might be bad wording on my part (I really don't feel like cheiking all the posts). Lucinda sees "killing" and "murder" as different things. "Ozaking and T were the two people she has murdered (i.e. Set out specifically to murder). The other people we killed in self defense.

The other things is Cin's absurd Cipher rating (Cipher 7). Even with a intel network, it is very doubtful that anything she did could be linked to her.

Sorry for the mix up.

[ 06-01-2002: Message edited by: Cin ]

[Fortune's Son]

So, essentially Lucinda assumed something and made a mistake and is sorry.

Heheheheheheheh.

Couldn't resist.

[Hugin]

Quote:

The other things is Cin's absurd Cipher rating (Cipher 7). Even with a intel network, it is very doubtful that anything she did could be linked to her.
Sorry for the mix up.

[ 06-01-2002: Message edited by: Cin ][/QB]

Curious, been meaning to ask you about that. First, I was under the impression that in Aberrant, you could not have backgrounds above 5. Second, shouldn't Cypher have some sort of roleplaying explanation? I ask because in character Cin has claimed to have met and talked with half of all the Novas on the planet. How does one stay secret and mysterious when everyone on the planet either knows her or knows someone who knows her? Also, in defense of Prodigy, Per5 MegaPer2 and Investigation 4 still has a fair chance of being able to make some connections when the person with Cipher admits to having performed a number of killings.

But, if we're cool, we're cool. I will try in the future to be more exact.

[Cin]

the explination is simple. There are several ways to look at it actually. Cin was a "Cleaner" that means when Ops got botched she went in to clean things up and minimize the damger. You learn alot of things as a cleaner and a "spook" so to speak.

1) It's a matter of peole know who they are talking to. And keep in mind Cin can Shapeshift to look like other people and assume other identies. She doesn't copy powers, but her pattern changes even.

2) (more of Cin's case) it is a matter of people having facts about you. The only "facts" that peole have about Cin is a Handle and a name that is a false identity. She has even registered, but thanks to some very infuencial people, certain powers of her's, namely shapshift, isn't on record. Even if people who knew you are you can still do ops and the like and cover your tracks, making sure not to leave any clues and therefore making it anywhere from difficult to nearly impossiable for you to be linked to it.

You can meet alot of people and not reveal a thing about yourself as well. She was a cleaner for 15 years before her eruption so certain (some would say paranoid) habbits are engrained into her about revealing details.

As far as backgrounds past 5, my ST used the expanded list for backgrounds listed in the Guide to the Technocracy. So it's a house rule and part of it comes froma very long story about Cin.

Does that anwser your questions?

Cin

[ 06-01-2002: Message edited by: Cin ]

[Fortune's Son]

Plus, at extremely high levels of cipher there are some downsides as well so it really does balance out in a moderated game. If I recall the expansion in the APG correctly, cipher at this level begins to take on a life of it's own. Bank accounts disappear, identities become zeroed... blah blah blah.

At this level it would seem that Cin has no identity.

[ 06-01-2002: Message edited by: Jack Chance ]