Writing Prompts

[dragoongfa]

Currently trying to work on Beacons, work has been murder the past few days and my mind is mush but I will throw my two cents in for New Frontiers which is shaping up nicely:

Moving the Diral to the Hos'te Blec earlier than alluded in 'Beacons' is in line with the story. The opportunity is there for Nathan to showcase some advanced telepathic abilities like Alex did on Tempest:

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Him sensing a quite agitated Argent when she meets a Mizol face to face should be enough to trigger a Lotai incident, bonus points if the Diral manages to maintain rudimentary telepathic communications while under it (extended family and all that). A huge incentive for even a fool to further investigate his potential. Heaven forbid if someone actually tries to harm Argent in such meeting, I am picturing a subconscious telepathic punch to the chin, instant knockdown and will be having a bad headache for a few days.

Also the move to the Hos'te Blec clan isn't necessarily the end, if the Diral is to be of use to the Mizol both for research and later black ops then they have to become full warriors and that means going through their training and trials with Nathan as part of it.

[Werra]

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I am picturing a subconscious telepathic punch to the chin, instant knockdown and will be having a bad headache for a few days.

Not sure how I feel about giving humans even better telepathic abilities. What they already have is plenty and rather fantastic.

[dragoongfa]

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Already put that on Beacons with the caveat that it is subconscious and only triggers if the bonded Loroi is harmed. Of course this could be something that happens much later during a mission and after lengthy 'subconscious training regiments'.

[CF2]

NOTICE
Dragoongfa as of the time of this post is having some issues with posts appearing and will be delayed in posting further fiction.

I can't post until this issue is resolved

[Zarya]

Short contribution to NF, brave old Mizol going in.

[novius]

New part is up

Added a flashback scene and some lead-in to the talks.

Perhaps, as already said, I'll post some part for Beacons, too, if the forum allows - as of the last two days, there are massive issues...

[Zarya]

One step forward to talks around the fire pit.

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Natan won’t be part of this. Argent shields him from direct scrutiny and we need some trust building.

[Werra]

I am a bad person.

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Can you name a better punishment for Nelonial?

[Zarya]

Argh, difficult Mizol proposal and playing the kids.
My impression is that this makes Argent and the others look weaker than they deserve.

[novius]

Argh, difficult Mizol proposal and playing the kids.
My impression is that this makes Argent and the others look weaker than they deserve.

They're Mizol after all - shady deals are their business. Though, interesting take on things... Nelonial surely is spitting nails when she got told that her away team lost to a bunch of kids...

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History has it that the diral did end up with the Hos'te Blec - which would imply that they did have to bow to Bastal's terms and they had lost. But, even if they win, perhaps Argent and the rest of the diral did accede to the proposal, but bartering from a somewhat stronger position and make some demands on their own. Could be that they did decide that their life as Soroin is technically over, since they did already bend traditions quite much - they already got neck-deep in it as soon as they took in Natan and defended him. And winning, but still giving in to Bastal's terms to an extent may seem to be the best strategy to not to completely lose Natan.

After all, if the diral wants to have a chance of winning, they have to rethink tactics. They wouldn't succeed with a frontal assault or an ambush - as it would be expected from Soroin trainees - against a fully equipped and geared up group, and they'd have to rely on subterfuge and trickery. After all, their objective is not to defeat or subdue the away team, but to acquire and use a single item. So they have to resort to an approach that's more a Mizol's forte than a Soroin's....

...and perhaps this is Bastel's original intention. An assessment to see how they'd do as Mizol.

[Werra]

My impression is that this makes Argent and the others look weaker than they deserve.

How so? Because they got played in the deal or because of only facing 6 Loroi?

And yeah, that Torimor knew exactly how to stack the deck against the kids. But since she is showing obvious signs of aging, she's 350+ years in the business.

[Zarya]

My impression is that this makes Argent and the others look weaker than they deserve.

How so? Because they got played in the deal or because of only facing 6 Loroi?

And yeah, that Torimor knew exactly how to stack the deck against the kids. But since she is showing obvious signs of aging, she's 350+ years in the business.

Yea, the problem I see is with the being played so easily and looking naive by description, bc of lighting up when certain buttons are pushed. It is somewhat disappointing imho. I also think it limits ways to further develop the characters. Naive is definitely more limiting and boring than having an ability to surprise the Mizol (perhaps by only appearing naive - just keep in mind that the Mizol is totally blind in terms of sanzai, this advantage is currently not used at all).

When it comes to Argent’s leadership role, or the wider team around her, we need more “oomph”.
A possible way to deal with this - now Argent is so clearly outperformed - is more support by characters such as Coldfire or Blackrune, helping Argent to take matters in their own hands.

Edit >>>

Goldilocks scenario is having the Mizol backpedal, not playing tricks, or proposing games. She could be the diral’s ally while still serving her own interests...

[Werra]

That's a good point. I could have probably found ways to include the others, too. Then again, how would Bastal tell that that is happening? If they don't give their advice verbally, she is deaf to it.

Might be that the Diral and Argent came out a bit naive. But that's to be expected. The majority of their learning that does not prepare them for live in the Diral happens afterwards. Them being outplayed is to be expected from 9 6 - 7 year olds with very limited life experience. I still shudder from embarrassment when I remember some of the stuff I did in high school and I communicated in my native language. :/

Character development can happen by learning from bad experiences, don't worry.

Goldilocks scenario is having the Mizol backpedal, not playing tricks, or proposing games. She could be the diral’s ally while still serving her own interests...

Why would she do that? What can the Diral offer or threaten to do so she would back off? The Diral are a bunch of footsloggers in the woods and Bastal has full access to futuristic space age tech. With current human tech, the Diral could maybe threaten to vanish into the woods forever, but not against Loroi tech. I suppose they could call the Elders...then Nathan gets into official, read Mizol, hands away from the Diral.

Food for thought:
Say there is a person with literally unhackable electronic technology. How many corpses would the KGB be willing to step over to acquire that person? So how many corpses would the Mizol accept as a price for Nathan?

[Zarya]

For the story I propose to take a bigger leap. Bastal is Charlie and the diral are her Angels

They can play as equals. Bastal is willing to coach and respects the diral. She’s looking for a win-win, not a ‘I force you into submission if you loose my game situation.’ Her angels have the gift of youth and Nathan’s unique lotai, Bastal has 350+ years of experience...

[novius]

For the story I propose to take a bigger leap. Bastal is Charlie and the diral are her Angels

They can play as equals. Bastal is willing to coach and respects the diral. She’s looking for a win-win, not a ‘I force you into submission if you loose my game situation.’ Her angels have the gift of youth and Nathan’s unique lotai, Bastal has 350+ years of experience...

In addition, placing the diral against an alert away camp, fully decked out in combat gear, expecting an attack in a given time window and being in a fortified position with everything perimeter security has to offer (video feeds, thermal imaging, ultrasound detectors, whatever else you may think of) puts the diral against a foe almost impossible to overcome with their limited means.

Bastal may want to challenge the diral to see the breadth of their abilities. And thus she sets up a test that would put them through the paces. I liken it to the situation where the cat burglar passed the video cameras, the laser barriers, the pressure plates and the combination locks, only to stand in front of her prize, sitting on a pedestal....

...only for the room to light up and the wealthy owner of the manor walking up from behind and offering the burglar a job she cannot refuse.

She doesn't expect the diral to actually win. It would be in her power to make the diral outright 'disappear' without giving them any say in the matter - this setup is only a test for the abilities of potential assets and they'd need the motivation to perform well.

[Razor One]

Okay, given that dragoongfa's account is still out of commission and his posts are still in the memory hole, I've taken the liberty to start slowly backing up New Frontiers over at a Wordpress I specifically made. First three chapters are currently backed up, more to follow as time on my end permits.

I'd love to do this for Beacons as well, but without Dragoons posts it's potentially a bit of a clusterfrak to back it up properly, so I'm putting that on hold for now until we can figure out where exactly the breaks are. Hopefully Arioch can fix the forum issues soon.

If you have a wordpress account, I believe I can make you a contributor so you can mirror posts between here and there. I'd just need your email or wordpress username to send the invite, send it to me via PM rather than in the thread though so as to prevent the spambots from consuming your soul.

[dragoongfa]

I am back, with a new account, can no longer claim bragging rights for my post numbers but at least my posts are now visible.

[novius]

Perhaps I can help you with restoring the missing posts. When the trouble began at the 7th, the times the forum was reachable I made a backup of the two story threads. There dragoongfa's posts - hopefully all of them - were still readable.

EDIT: Looks like with the reincarnation of dragoongfa's user account his forum posts came back up again - they were never gone from the database, just not referenced for the time being.

[Zarya]

Welcome back Dragoon - do you have your fanfics backed up?
(Personal favourite is Looking Forward to The Mirror).

[Arioch]

I am back, with a new account, can no longer claim bragging rights for my post numbers but at least my posts are now visible.

I fixed your user posts number so that your bragging may continue.

For my ally is the SQL, and a powerful ally it is.