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Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #50
Perfectly elucidated what I was trying to communicate what the problem was. Thank you as always PC.


 
Timeline Skips – AKA “The Natalie Stark Problem”
(TL,DR: Planned time skips in between episodes or chapters within an episode should be considered in order to permit characters to progress on story arcs that would naturally take longer.  There is precedence for this in Trek canon, and by not permitting any form of time skip, some of these longer arks are being made to feel a bit awkward.  Planned and plotted time jumps could be very beneficial)
 
First and foremost, please know that I have spoken to Brutus about using Natalie as an example and he is fully on board. 
I would be lying if I said I fully understand the ins and outs of the timeline conversation, and I do agree that trying to align game time to IRL time is a failing formula.  But at the same time, we can not ignore the fact that this sim has been running 12 years and barely 6 months of game time has been covered.  So, in that regard, I do agree that accelerating the timeline a little is a worthy discussion to have.  I have a suggestion for that.
Lets look at Natalie Stark as an example.  According to Brutus, Natalie was made Acting First officer somewhere around the “end of the Aldea Arc” and was in place in that role when Season 2 Episode 1 began.  She was then promoted sometime during the interregnum between Episode 1 and 2 of Season 2.

Auctor’s thread that launched “Advent of War” started on June 17, 2020, almost 25 months ago to the day. 
 
As writers, we have been working in the mindset of “Natalie Stark is our Executive officer” for over two years.   But… According to the in-game calendars, she has only been executive officer for 25 days.  Advent of war spanned 4 days.   Qu’Nos shore leave has spanned 21 days.    But therin lays the problem.   In game, Natalie has only a “time in grade” of less than a month.   Which, under most circumstances is far too short a period for her to serving as an executive officer (with no prior experience) and be considered qualified as a commanding officer.  There are certainly exceptions both in practicality and in canon, but for the purposes of this, let’s put that aside.
 
I believe the cause of this issue was, in part, due to AL’s hesitation to skip time between episodes, or between chapters within episodes.  Since I joined in November of 2019, every single day that has passed on Theurgy, has been accounted for.   I do not believe this is necessarily necessary.
 
I believe that we can (and should) plan for skips in time between the end of one episode and the start of another.  I believe we can (and should) not be afraid to skip time within an episode.  This would allow us as writers to help build out some of our character arcs that are stagnating because “not enough time has passed in game for X to happen” despite the fact we’ve been writing for months.  Over the course of three game days, my own character has come to believe her spouse is dead, mourned her, moved on, and started up a new relationship.   That doesn’t seem very practical as an outsider looking in (even for a Vulcan), but it’s accepted because it took months to write those three days.  If we permit planned time skips between chapters and entire episodes, it would be easier to allow our characters to grow “behind the scenes” so we can propel story lines that work better on a longer-term scale.
 
There is plenty of precedence for large gaps of time being not accounted for in Trek canon.   I’m looking at “Year of Hell”.  I’m looking at “Thirty Days”, as well as the 3 month jump from the end of Season 5 of DS9 to the start of Season 6 as well as the multiple month jump between Season 6 and 7.  I’m looking at “Lessons”.  I’m looking at “The Inner Light” and “The Visitor”; episodes that used time jumps in the narrative to span an entire lifetime.   I’m looking at the entire third season of Star Trek: Enterprise, as well as the time intervals between Star Trek’s II, III, and IV. 
 
The passage of time can be a very effective narrative tool when used properly.  It is one that we have shied away from here on Theurgy, but I strongly encourage it to be considered going forward.  I do not believe it should be done willy-nilly, nor do I believe it should be up to each individual writer to just magically pass a week of time for their character(s) whenever they feel like it, because I do agree it will lead to eventual chaos.  But if utilized between episodes or between chapters of an episode, I believe it could be a very useful, and welcome tool for the sim as a whole.



Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #51
Hi Everyone.

Finally getting to read whats being posted. I am not sure my thoughts will be helpful but for what its worth here they are.

Leadership

I'd be happy to see Brutus in charge. Fun, kind and a good laugh with excellent writing skills. If Brutus wants the job I am all for it. Much like Rhys I am happy so long as I am not taking the lead as being nominally in charge of anything is the kind of thing we both have nightmares about.

Future Plot/ Fate of Theurgy

I think it would be best to stay on the ship as is:

1. It gives a bedrock of law and history for people to drawn upon in future stories.
2. If people want we can still draw a close to the parasite Arc and do a sort of soft reboot and move on to something else.
3. It has no influence on charchters moving positions etc if they want to.
4. We don't have to worry about debating what the next ship should be or trying to invent a new class. We can just move on.

Personally I am happy to carry on as we are or call an end to the parasite Arc (writing a close for it). I have faith in the writers around me to continue to produce interesting stories and posts in whatever circumstance.

Time skips could be fun, and I have no objection to seeing where are charchters are in 12 months or whatever. That to could be interesting.

Charchers

I know some people have had problems with how thier charchters have ended up.  I am also in this camp. Rhys was originall intended to be an OPs officer, but I took so long in writing him there were only spaces to be a counsellor. I love Rhys but it does mean he can be tricky to get involved in the main plot. I find it easiest to write him in interregnums and down time. Which leads to a lot of personal interactions and sexy time. Which is fine, but sometimes it would be nice to be in a more active role. Threads with him taking place in a full episode, it often feels a bit disconected or secondary to the main plot.

So perhaps we ought to think about what primarily non-combatant and non senior members of the crew can do. Sometimes it feels very restrictive.

Post timings

As a person who regularly broke the 10 day deadline (and actually got removed once and had to beg to be let back on). (Sorry to everyone I've written with). I don't think it should change from 10 days. I think thats reasonable, with exceptions here and there for people having real world issues. I would suggest in main plot lines it might be a good idea to if there is a long gap.

Anyway I am not sure if anything I said was helpful. But I hope so.

Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #52
Posted for @BipSpoon :

My opinion is just have the “time skip” a forum board that takes place over a chunk of time that people can write either their own short stories or whatever or threads in within a certain set of “rules” (ie: where is the crew during time skip?) and it runs concurrently with the main story. So it’s a chapter that doesn’t actually take up writing time and people can either handwave certain character changes or if they decide on them at some point in writing the new chapter they can write about it in the time skip chapter if they so please. Just my two cents!

On an unrelated note, over the next couple weeks I will endeavor to wrap up/fin most (if not all) of my threads. Those who wish to continue please PM/DM me at your convenience.

Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #53
Based on some conversations in the discord it was pointed out that anyone 'nominated' to fill any sort of role should probably expressly state that they are in fact willing. Since y'all keep dropping my name like its going out of style ;) I am willing to oversee things either on my own or as part of some structured team, etc. I think I said that in my previous post but i'll repeat it here for clarities sake.

Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #54
Updates!

Leadership Nominations:

@Brutus has accepted the nomination as head bossperson. He's winning by default right now, so definitely not going out of style :)

Seconds/Underlings/Minions/Title TBD (2 positions available):
@rae - accepted nomination
@Ellen Fitz - conditionally accepted nomination
@Stegro88 - accepted nomination
@Eirual - accepted nomination
@RyeTanker - accepted nomination

I'm going to give everyone a few more days to comment on here before I make polls this weekend.
- One for leadership
- One for staying on Theurgy or not (everyone is talking about staying, but I said I was going to make a poll last week, so now I feel obligated to figure out how?)

Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #55
I accept the Nomination

Ensign Mia Dunne   [Show/Hide]

  Kelistina (Kel) Kavot Droga   [Show/Hide]


Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #57
I'd suggest surveymonkey or something similar for voting, PM/DM the link to keep randoms from contaminating the counts. Just for consideration.

Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #58
I'd suggest surveymonkey or something similar for voting, PM/DM the link to keep randoms from contaminating the counts. Just for consideration.

Good idea. A link shared on discord and sent in a message to the active members here is a good idea.




Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #62
I do think that the inherited characters that AL has could be put back up for adoption.
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Lieutenant JG Adam Kingston, Master-at-Arms, (Vector 03 Security) Profile Clickie

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Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #63
My thoughts:

--WRT. Natalie Stark as Captain: If you save the Federation and Starfleet Command thinks your leadership was a key part of that, brevet promotion to O-6 being made permanent is IMO certainly plausible.  From a Doylist POV, having the Captain be the main referee works well too. 

--WRT. the infested plotline: This has not really served as the main plot so far.  The infested are a handy narrative tool to drive the plot (e.g. by having one drive the Klingon civil war, or by exiling our crew, etc.), but we've had little progress on their story at least since I showed up mid-pandemic.  Most of our stuff has been stopping infested side-plots rather than going for them outright. 

as such, IMO it's entirely reasonable to say, "ok, we are going to end the infested plotline by revealing them to the galaxy and imprisoning all the infested leaders, then figure out where to go from there", and we can either write out negotiating what to do (are the parasites themselves legally people?  the Federation doesn't do the death penalty for the most part, how do they approach the Klingons probably wanting to kill the parasites and their hosts both just to be sure?  how do we de-infest people long-term?) or make it exposition as we go out on a new mission. 

With respect to new missions: these guys did a lot of damage in a short time.  Romulan space is going to be chaos.  The Klingons might have another civil war just for kicks, you know, since the last one ended pretty fast and not many folks had a chance to win all that glorious honor.  What about the Tholians, Cardassians, Dominion, Tzenkethi?  Internal Federation drama is a thing, too.  Depending on who exactly was infected and when, people might want to re-try a bunch of recent civil rights cases or toss recent laws. Augments still can't do much openly, maybe we want to get involved with a campaign with Dr. Bashir in the name of civil rights? 

this could be a general plot driver going forward.  Need a plot thread?  Well, you poor Theurgy grunts did the hard work of saving the Federation.  Now the galaxy's still on fire and somebody needs to put out those fires.  And what do you know?  Starfleet Command just called with your mission of the week, you lucky sinners. 

passage of time could be solved like this, too.  have a dedicated interlude subforum for "sometime in between Episode X and Episode Y" and put anything like promotions, sin you can't get out of your head but can't fit into the regular story, relationship progression you need but can't fit in, etc. in there. 

Just my 2 cents.  :)
Really enjoying writing a halfway stable character for once...

Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #64
Honestly, well said.... the flight of the Theurgy is the main plot. Not dealing directly with the Infested in any way, aside from on a very small scale.

Deal with the aftermath and move on. The Romulans, Klingkns, and Federation are all smart. They might be misled for a bit, but honestly, even TNG only had this for a single episode as bad as it was.

They couldn't make it work for a major story arc. We haven't used it as more than set dressing and chaos being cause. Other things have been a direct and immediate threat.


My thoughts:

--WRT. Natalie Stark as Captain: If you save the Federation and Starfleet Command thinks your leadership was a key part of that, brevet promotion to O-6 being made permanent is IMO certainly plausible.  From a Doylist POV, having the Captain be the main referee works well too. 

--WRT. the infested plotline: This has not really served as the main plot so far.  The infested are a handy narrative tool to drive the plot (e.g. by having one drive the Klingon civil war, or by exiling our crew, etc.), but we've had little progress on their story at least since I showed up mid-pandemic.  Most of our stuff has been stopping infested side-plots rather than going for them outright. 

as such, IMO it's entirely reasonable to say, "ok, we are going to end the infested plotline by revealing them to the galaxy and imprisoning all the infested leaders, then figure out where to go from there", and we can either write out negotiating what to do (are the parasites themselves legally people?  the Federation doesn't do the death penalty for the most part, how do they approach the Klingons probably wanting to kill the parasites and their hosts both just to be sure?  how do we de-infest people long-term?) or make it exposition as we go out on a new mission. 

With respect to new missions: these guys did a lot of damage in a short time.  Romulan space is going to be chaos.  The Klingons might have another civil war just for kicks, you know, since the last one ended pretty fast and not many folks had a chance to win all that glorious honor.  What about the Tholians, Cardassians, Dominion, Tzenkethi?  Internal Federation drama is a thing, too.  Depending on who exactly was infected and when, people might want to re-try a bunch of recent civil rights cases or toss recent laws. Augments still can't do much openly, maybe we want to get involved with a campaign with Dr. Bashir in the name of civil rights? 

this could be a general plot driver going forward.  Need a plot thread?  Well, you poor Theurgy grunts did the hard work of saving the Federation.  Now the galaxy's still on fire and somebody needs to put out those fires.  And what do you know?  Starfleet Command just called with your mission of the week, you lucky sinners. 

passage of time could be solved like this, too.  have a dedicated interlude subforum for "sometime in between Episode X and Episode Y" and put anything like promotions, sin you can't get out of your head but can't fit into the regular story, relationship progression you need but can't fit in, etc. in there. 

Just my 2 cents.  :)

Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #65
I concur with everything about by @GroundPetrel‍ and @Tae‍ 

Kind of feeling it'd be best to wrap the plot and move on with the crew remaining after the aftermath. Allowing Auctors characters to facilitate the capture and diplomatic portion of this so the crew can move on to new exploration opportunities. 

Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #66
I quite honestly disagree.

Creating an entirely new storyline takes time and might take Theurgy into a direction that might alienate some of the community. Why? Because not everyone will enjoy fighting the Borg, getting trapped in a dark alternative timeline or exploring the Gamma Quadrant. With the infested storyline we know what we have: something which appeals to the entire community.

That aside, wrapping up the infested storyline in one or two threads would be an immense disservice to Auctor Lucan and the story which he tried to tell. After ten years of exploring his carefully laid-out narrative, it doesn't sit right with me if we were to simply approach the Federation News Network to reveal our findings and wrap up the entire storyline like that.

Just my two cents.

Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #67
I quite honestly disagree.

Creating an entirely new storyline takes time and might take

Everything else aside, after the results of the poll, leadership will have 4 months to work something out. Which they'll have to do anyway.

Time is very much on their side.

Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #68
You know, this is a very unfair way of having a discussion. If you're only going to focus on the first fourteen words of my opinion and completely disregard the part where I tried to explain why I feel that particular way (which I added just so there would be additional food for thought and constructive discussion), I guess you're not interested in what I have to say so I'll just not voice my opinion here anymore and simply wait until the poll results are announced.

Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #69
You know, this is a very unfair way of having a discussion. If you're only going to focus on the first fourteen words of my opinion and completely disregard the part where I tried to explain why I feel that particular way (which I added just so there would be additional food for thought and constructive discussion), I guess you're not interested in what I have to say so I'll just not voice my opinion here anymore and simply wait until the poll results are announced.

Generally you can assume that if I only quote specific parts of a post only specific parts are addressed. I find your opinion the rest to be valid in and of itself. But also not something that I can address as I won't be one of the ones running things.

Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #70
Just to toss this in: I don't object to polishing off the Infested story. That was Auctor's story, and it wouldn't feel right to try to continue it. However, if we do resolve it, I believe that it should be done properly with a satisfying climax as its own action-packed dramatic episode to close off Season 02. Episode 02 would continue as planned (with tweaks as necessary), then Episode 03 would end the Infested story, then we could start Season 03 with something fresh.

Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #71
Just to toss this in: I don't object to polishing off the Infested story. That was Auctor's story, and it wouldn't feel right to try to continue it. However, if we do resolve it, I believe that it should be done properly with a satisfying climax as its own action-packed dramatic episode to close off Season 02. Episode 02 would continue as planned (with tweaks as necessary), then Episode 03 would end the Infested story, then we could start Season 03 with something fresh.

Hear hear. Finish it off, next chapter... or the one after. Don't drag it out and turn it into a shambling corpse of someone else's story.

Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #72
Quote

Hear hear. Finish it off, next chapter... or the one after. Don't drag it out and turn it into a shambling corpse of someone else's story.

Mate, have a little more respect for the work that WE have all put in over the past years. WE have all worked for this story. Many of us have dedicated multiple YEARS to this story through various episodes.

Referring to it as a zombie is not the way to sway people to your point of view.




I am not against ending the infested storyline. As long as it is done respectfully and realistically.  Season 02 was already about the Theurgy being proactive in their fight against them. Season 01 was 'The Flight'. Season 02 was 'The Fight'. Unfortunately, life and world events slowed everything down.

We have the opportunity to vote now to have a collective view of what the future could look like. Let's all just take a moment and wait and see. We don't need to campaign for what we want to see. We are all adults here and smart enough to be able to decide for ourselves.

Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #73
Apologies, no disrespect was intended to any of my fellow writers with the effort put forth by all of us.

Quote

Hear hear. Finish it off, next chapter... or the one after. Don't drag it out and turn it into a shambling corpse of someone else's story.

Mate, have a little more respect for the work that WE have all put in over the past years. WE have all worked for this story. Many of us have dedicated multiple YEARS to this story through various episodes.

Referring to it as a zombie is not the way to sway people to your point of view.




I am not against ending the infested storyline. As long as it is done respectfully and realistically.  Season 02 was already about the Theurgy being proactive in their fight against them. Season 01 was 'The Flight'. Season 02 was 'The Fight'. Unfortunately, life and world events slowed everything down.

We have the opportunity to vote now to have a collective view of what the future could look like. Let's all just take a moment and wait and see. We don't need to campaign for what we want to see. We are all adults here and smart enough to be able to decide for ourselves.

Re: Theurgy: The Next Generation

Reply #74
I disagree with the premise that the main plot with the Infested should be wrapped up so rapidly and even skipped over. The flight of Theurgy from the Infested is only the beginning of the saga which is to first ensure the survival of the heroes.

A progression follows where it is necessary to gather the resources and allies to combat the identified threat. This is the stage I believe we are at. The Klingons are on side and the next episode was probably to bring the Romulans on board as well. The temporal and dimensional technologies are also being developed to keep the universe safe. The time for running is over and the board is being set up for confronting the Infested.

While it is not the story that Auctor would have written, it is the story that we create together and there should be growth, failures, and triumphs in the progression of the ship and her crew before a final climactic battle to seal the fate of reality. Those aspects should be written out or the story of the crew is incomplete.

Finishing the story within the current season or even the next one is a reasonable.  We don't even have to make the seasons as long as the previous ones were.  They can be far more focused with more direct engagement of the Infested and their proxies.

 
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