Plot

Created Friday 02 November 2012

I'm impressed with The Expanse and how it managed to create, essentially, three different stories addressing three different plots, one for each season. I'll honestly never be able to match something like that for quality, but still doing that for the plot here might be fun.

The story is basically that of humanity dying in the environment. Death by environment.

First the Succubi, flown like dust by the Roots. And sometimes that dust flies forward and precedes the Roots. And so quickly becoming a harbinger of the Roots.

Then came the Blattids. Also before the humans even knew it. It wasn't that long that they were here before we knew they were, but they saw us before we saw them. And watched us best they could (things are done at a great distance out there), but didn't hestitate when what they saw seemed to show that we were coming---and that we were a threat too great to allow to come. They psyrconned us best they could (and that is what they do well---better than most races) but knew if they waited around too long gathering info that we as a threat woudl be growing too.

And so came the Raptors. The dirty, poisonous, nasty and low. Who come and just don't go away. That's how they fight. And they suck. No glory in killing Buzzkills; it's what anyone would do. But you still better do it soon and well. Let them set up a port to start bringing in Blinkerblasters, and it's too late: They are now an infection that is nearly impossible to dislodge. Either you have somewhere else to flee, or you die. From Raptor piss. And you know they're doing that on purpose; they chose to use that to kill us.

And then right on time come the Good. And Good gear. And Good god is Good gear good! The kind of sci fi weaponry and gizmos you can only Trek about.

And set, then the whole story does have to build up to the Battle of the Toss. If I write to anything here, it's disingenuous not to also write towards that. Set those peices up on the board. And see how they play out as I set them up (the things I write do tend to meander away

So that when that is over and the closing credits have run, show somewhere in this universe but seemingly not so well placed for an attack on this theatre, appears a glorious ship---a single glory---that is an exquisite blend of Good and Raptor dech. That is the Raptor ship that Raptors in an other universe make and blast away into other universes. That is their offering to their kindred here. Maybe to revenge their defeat to the humans (Heads) or perhaps to now rise up with success against the Blattids if humans are no longer around enough to destroy.

"When life has not treated you with kindness, doing the right thing anyway takes strength." [Awright, not that deep, but well said in a TV sort of way (on a show better than anything I could ever make).]

Deciders

The Final Post-Moderen Revolution
The realization---the subdual by---incontrovertable evidence that society should not be run by all. And that there have been established (from social sciences) a pretty darned good idea of who woudl run it better than you.

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Basic difference
fix things or leave htem..sammit
Lol! It was, "Those who click on things, and those who figure out what's wrong." Both can work in different ways--and better together. Good love story. for me

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Alternate title: The Space Between

So peopole really like great stoires about warring families. Game of Thrones. Dune.
And that's the rub.l People like me never figure it out until things like those show us. And I don't know how to make anyting literature-y that's not in their image.

And the love stories. He does them as well as any man could. Yo just gotta understand you're seeing love through a man's eyes. they are not like yours., gduh

Sure. Not to abuse it but (andother lesson of this turning point in life: it is no longer time to rely on savings. But to use them for doings. You have as much as you ever will all at the same time. It's now or never.
mxlplk2 It is now or It is never.

But, see, art--like sicence--is not a orgasmic experine.ce. gduh you fooll anyone who's ever done real art knows that. Real art is a loooong process . . . that makes you feel like it wwas orgasmic

The evil witch: Everyone who isn't us is an enemy. brilliant
I know a story about a boy who hated stories. best come back ever

give them form or let htem go

the mages older brother. don't name your kid after him, but he lived in the house of th4 clock. like that old guy across the rriver in 5 samurasi

tea is steeped in kindness. and the purer tea it is, the truer it is kind.

PSY 335
And guy friendships. the author truly knew himself how to be a friend. somehting I honestly never really learned. like being afraid of being alone.
Like that dream I had as a kid. when I kept running away from the scary monster. But one of my freinds asked me why I never yelled and screamed as I ran away. Eferyon ones lese doing that. Oh, I thought, so I guess I should too. And so I did. And so the monster saw me. And chased me. Into a chicken coop (scry becauese at that age it was one of things you knew / didn't know and so where kinda afriad of what you might end up knowing (those moments happen in life, Sometimes earlier than you'd like). And since I was stuck inside the coop, I had no where to run,. The monster stuck his head inside the coop and simly said, "Gotju" I had no where to run. I had to wake up. My first nightmare.

Being married means to start a relationship already living with two children. That little brat in you, and the kind little one in she you love. Treat one--maybe sometimes both--well.

daernyrys want the old myths to come true. then she gets dragons! yay! we always want more dragons!!!
the starks00great name choices btw--fear the coming of the myths. theirs speaks o the death of the world. noooone wants that. except real jerks.

O.K., here's what i have to give. whether you like it or not

thei withc the sun goddes
the winter the one triue god
confusing morality that's what the middle ages was all asbout
and the fundamentl plot--what do all there charascters--all these relatinships--do whan dath breks out

mxlplk1 Yeah, start that, too, this summer. (The Summer that Rocked.) Putting this shit somewhere where someon else could be stupid enough to find and and try to read it. In its raw form. The creation of art.

Quickly becoming the Plot Hole---the place where I dump all my half-baked and rotting ideas.

• The primality of having army drummers. LIke credits of seven samurai, having one rhythmn (how the fuck ever that's spelled) that your army could keep up during nearly any battle. That being the beat of your killing and your death. Having that.
• When horses--no stirrups--were nuclear

"I am where I want to be. In other words, I dont want be anywhere but here

the loneliness of space. And the inevitable realization that our sensatins end, and don't subsume it all

High noon commander daylight
Look: Could I command that campaign? Sure. Could you? Sure. Do you want to more than I do? Yep. So, guess what? You get to more than I will. Good luck. I'll stick to my hovels.
[I'm thinking that one shoudl rarely add emphasis to direct quotes. Let the voice speak for itself. Build a charater with a voice, and let that doing the talking.]

That's how to build political intrigue: Animate big decisions with what's known to the characters and not what's known to the reader based on personal characteristics and interests, make it clver--and then doo something yet more clever and daring with what wasn't seen by either the characters or the reader. ./..and do it well. Good luck.

By far not the first page of notes I made. Yeah, the ideas and theses have been floating around for quite a while and some even aggregating into larger, ill-shapen celestial bodies. But, this page wasn't nearly the first I cared to create.

And I really am considering adding the added cruft of a mind map to facilitate it. Martini me with my praise of the finely-honed minmial consider something as "bloated" as another program. Zim can make flow charts, but I guess I don't see those as less a cludge since they are transferred only as images I think. Mind maps I remember are exportable as .html with pages linked in a nice format not inconduscive to becoming the skeleton of the online "final" thingy.

Awright, I guess I convinced myself of seeing how easily it's incoporated with this and moving fowward with the plot.

But first, the main theses

A moment so beautiful it makes you cry.

Sher, it's banal as the sky, but istening to this as a perfect segue from the Doctor (what/ you can do better?).
The point is, it really doesn't fucking matter what it is--if you care about it. It's that simple.

I am not a prepper. That is a fantasy. But I do strive now --and I hope evermore--a realist. And I do keep among the most perfect knives my civilaization can create at my home desk. I do. I researched it. Fällkniven S1. yeah, with teh dumb black blade. cool as fuck.

Oh yeah. A bit campy wit age, but:

BSG: How many of us ended up with the people we really wanted to be with? Got stuck with limitted options.

Who doesn't want their dying words to be, "I love you"? There is more to life than that, but not without that.

My little waggle-to-warlock thing: Creating a weird little place indeed.
But a good one is:

greener pastures I guess some stupid thuing

Oh, yeah. Total cylon camp BS: I thought about you every day since that moment I died in your arms.
Dude. If you fall for shit, you deserve it.

I look around in wonder at what is my life. That new otoman with the door closed in a new view of our home that Min found and I had never seen before. Guiding policy and practice of what really still has to be seen as a major educational force in China (it is 130 schools and <80k children affected by it) and being gently asked to join the board. A cute and tender wife.
In some ways. No. In nearly every way I am surprised. Sure luck, but even that not where I'd've thought it'd be.
And still seeing that it is me all along. That what I was as a child was what would make this be.
You see, because the luck I had wasn't coming to New York (well, O.K., that was the one time I rolled a 0-0 on a critical saving throw--a roll like ray made getting double damage with his triple damage trident charge against a older Black Dragon). Sure, I'd had some lucky rolls in my life (Stephanie as a first, model girlfriend). But I've also had a lot of shitty rolls (Linda as my acutally first girlfriend, getting arrested, fired, fired again, and then landing only a shitty job and only one nibble for ten fucking years.). Those didn't even even out, the good and bad luck in my life.
No, the good luck I had was in my initial stats. I am honestly humbled by my talents. And deeply feel the responsibility to use them and to develop me so that I can use them all the more. My bed--the beds of those less lucky with their stat rolls than I--are burning. I have to make my life matter 101% : )

"You look at a baby born with AIDS to a 14-yearo-old girl forced to marry her rapist and tell me life is fair. Do you relaly think this is the work of a caring god? But you say this world doesn't matter; it's just the inconvenience of having to stand on line while we wait to geet ino the awesome rock concert of heaven. O.K., if it doesn't matter, why does it exist? And even if it doesn't matter, why does it look like this? Do you really think this is the fingerprint of a gentle god? No, I think that whatever we came from, we're on our own in this.

[lter, less rehearsed thought:
And growing up. Feeling the anxiety of the guilt instilled in you throughout childhood--and being able to address it.
"

So, just to put it down, the point of all these musings is this general story arch (cut in and added currently last part of the very ragged and unread Plot page):

Sorry, but I do think I need protangonists. I just can't think plot without liking my characters, and I guess I'm that judgemental that some have to be "good" and I can't help liking them more.

2021-06-21
The "protomolecule" is a really good idea. Something so alien we struggle to uindedrstand it. Andit might be helpful, it might be hamrful (probably harmful), so it sure looks powerful. [O.K., that sounds less cool than when I initially thought it.]

My monument to my weakness, this deepening pile of past thoughts.

Anyway, A woman facing an issue, says to her man, "You can't help me with this." Yeah, well done The Expanse. I couldn't do better to portray the mind of a good woman. (well, one type of that)

Amazon is like a bad but needy girlfriend: She'll give you all she's got, and that's none of what you want.

"He's as slippery as a lemon seed."

Boy, this page needs pruning.
And yet instead I add.
And am surprised that (if) I haven't written this already.
The basic series of events is this:

• Human society has advanced to the stage where we have largely mastered living in space (best one can) and even have an idea of how to travel faster than light---it just takes plantetoid-sized masses of energy to do.
  • In this time, among the changes to human society were:
    • Perfection of ways of altering the entire course of many developmental trajectories. Extending childhood and pluripotence while slowing down less areas that develop executive functions and the development of many types of wisdom.
      • The general lengthening of human lives, leading to necessarily reducde birth rates and a great meritocracy as those who do live learn well who does what well.
    • The creation of AIs powerful enough to guide decisions even of political complexity. Not nasty politics (well), but real politics of guiding policy---and thus designing society---in ways that are inherently more rational, more Jamesian & Bayesian.
    • The creation of the caste of Deciders. Those who interfact best and most brilliantly with the best AIs. Their decisions are law. The laws of petition for their decisions are strained and tuned to combat abuse. With the means of their testing among the areas of lawmost most highly-informed by AIs
• Along come the Succubi along with the Triffids fleeing the Really Big Space Monster.
• The Succubi teach Humans Deus ex, letting them at least be able to drive out to local systems and such up their matter instead of stripping Sol to any more planets (give hints but never say which and how many are lost, but that some are)
• Among the weird things Humans encounter (rarely interspersed among most of the time Humans spend in space having absolutely nothing to do in the middle of absolutely nowehere for decades) is encoutering things that make them realize they're not the only ones hopping between systems.
• Until Blattids detect their presence and start coming in with psyops. Not well, but there is some effect. It's an initial and weird threat they don't expect from left field. The Humans don't do well combating it---lots of Strom und Drang little success---but the Blattids also realize they're not that great at understanding Humans, and so they send in the Buzzkills. Searching for Sol.
• The Great Long War begins and ends with a coin toss.
• Not sure what happens next outside of me blessing a few characters to survive a Blattid/Buzzkill win.

Attach of the Really Big Space Monster: The Game

[And yes, whatever the title actually is, it must be that corny.]

I'm thinking of making this not into a book. (No, I mean not only knowing it'll never amount to anything, but also orienting this towards a final product isn't a book.)
A role playing game.

With Chaoism-like skills and combat mortaility. (You can get killed in any fight there. There's always a chance. Which is why Stormbringer worked so well there.)

But with not only scenarios but scenes.

That being the key to combat here. Positioning. Because detection is hard, but weapons now so lethal that you only ever have three HP ("wounded," "severly wounded," and "somehow crippled"). Even in relatively close combat (e.g., urban warfare), it's still always about detection.

So combat mechanics is a small game of positioning. In a role playing game, a game of chess with turn timers determined by the situation in the game (maybe having iniative means your turn 1 is X longer).

• The idea is this: It's not that you have 3 HP per unit (or whatever, maybe Haggs have, like thousands of regenerable HP---a challenge to degrade over not a battel scenario, but a campaign; so, yeah Hagg battles must be played as campagins. Their creation, estblishment, and dominance all take at least one battle scenario each, and can share HP across battle scenarios. Haggs and Blinker Blaster Bases both are fought over campaigns; maybe different-sized campaigns (but that, sure, still need to have a common pattern they can be laid against: You can play over-lapping campaigns: If there is a Human player and a Blattid-Buzzkills Band player, they can play those campaigns on the same turns as the other player.
  • And yeah, I think here the Humans have a bit of an advantage. Haggs only take 3 scenarios to build while the BBBs take 4. The Humans can thus complete a Hagg---reach system dominance---sooner. The BBBs aren't completely at a disadvantage, though: Just like with NP in tactical battles, the player can slide HPs around, not only between turns in a tactical battle, but across campaign scenerios. They can load dice so high, you can't loose.
    • But, of course, there are diminishing returns: Jumps in the costs of moving HP. (Or not, maybe that just makes it more complicated than better. Yeah, scrathc, that, free transfer of, sure, opportunity credits. Yeah, OPs.) So you can OP a situation. Have one piece on an otherwise dominated board---like one side having lost all pieces but the king and the other side none---and OP his HP (sorry, but that worked out well) so high, on every turn, you somehow miss capturing the king.
      • But, to play the full game, you also have to "momentario" those attacks. Role play out how the heck the king did that. But where more and more unrealisitc things must be accepted given the number of OPs in use (max OPs is 9; this is all d10; this is astronomy; the system is numnbered in degrees magnitude.).

Degrees magnitude

It's a D10 system. Representing log₁₀. The difference in a score in the game---between a 3 and a 4, say---is meant to represent one order of magnitude. Something changing enough in quality that is changes in quantity. "Wounded" versus "severly wounded." But it also represents a D10 role. So, for what it's worth, it's a log universe decided by "decile" probability. The game mechanics are geared to there being a few really improbable events happening. But for there then to be scenarios were nothing usual happens; you each loose X HP (X bveing whatever would have been the numbers of peices eacxh side would have, no other mods. So, if at that location you had 3 pieces, they each have 3 HP. No other HPs or OPsa could be added to or moved from that scenario.

Battle Play

Yeah, this is the part that'll probably never be made. Not by me, and that narrows it down quick. But still a miniature-based board game.
When you play "nornal" roleplay---interact with other players & NPCs, do things in the world, even campaign---you just RP as usual. But any time there is a battle, you've got to stop any other play and lay out the battle. Battles are serious. Maybe it's VP not HP, but in many cases of battles it's this unit and its lives. You've got to set those pieces up ("position" them in some way) and play the game out, or tell some computer to fight it for you and tell you who won and with what cost. (And, yes, presuming players include Deciders, the AI the player uses to calculate that battle is the one you're Second-Avatar to. Most do about the same, but some---like H0---do a heck of a lot better. (But, yeah, the makers of the game---I mean the actual board-game I for one won't ever make---ought to have the actual game playable through differents Ais. All Human players get an Ai, but you've got to somehow be a "spwcial player" to have more than a 9° Ai---an Ai that has a 10% chance of moving 1 OP. That's the Ai that is available to any Human anywhere (well, within any Human-occupied space. Any other space, there is either at least a 8° Avatar spent for and sent, or there is no Ai in play for Humans.

The OP of an Ai

This might already be too granular, but the role of an Ai in a scenario's OP is based on a probability. Well, a reduction of probablity: The level of the highest Avatar that appears anywhere in that sceenario is used to modify the OP of that whole scenario. If there are 20 OP for a given scenario, they are usually divided evenly between players

1. Role D10
2. If there is an Ai whose degree is less than the die role, then let that Ai player arrange themselves up to 10 - Ai° OP not only across moments in the scenario, but also across players in the scenario.