Season FIVE OOC

[Jen]

This is where we will discuss ideas/questions about the plot for Season Five. I will post the outlines for this season in this thread. So keep your eye out for them... the first will be posted within the next day or so.

This season will not be as long as the previous one. We want to wrap it up in about a month and a half from the start, which will be Sunday January 20th in the AM. Keep your eye out for it.

We are asking that each writer to commit to at least ONE post a week, although the story is open to one post every day. If you are participating in Season Five, please try to stay on this schedule, as it will help us complete the story on time. Also, refer to the outline if you get stuck or PM one of the moderators for direction. Please feel free to collaborate if you need help getting a post up.

This season we are also asking for each writer to create at least one NPC (non-player character). We need to fill out the departments on our ship. It's pretty lonely on Tiberius. A NPC is a "non-player character"... we want you to create a character that will work in your department but in addition you can also create a girlfriend, wife, husband, daughter, son... teacher, best friend.. anything, just no spies.  ;)

Your NPC will allow you the ability to post even if you are waiting for someone to respond to your main character's tag (an open ended post that requires a reply from another writer/character). It also provides the ability for you to post from an other character's prospective. If you get bored with your main character, you have "Joe Blow" to steer about the story.  The same rule applies to NPC posts as it does for main character posts (no more than once a day).

As always, if you have any questions... please feel free to contact Jen or Kenny (Startrekfanatic5) for help. All our members are very cordial and would be willing to help you if you have any questions or if you would like to collaborate on a story.

Newbies... This is the time to create your character profiles. Please start those and send them to Kenny and I. We'll help you with them and assign you a rank.

This is going to be a great season with an awesome ending... you're going to really enjoy the roller coaster ride. FYI roller coaster enthusiasts are geeks too. Check out ACE (American Coaster Enthusiasts)... We're all one big happy geekdom.


Tally ho!  :D

[X]

I'm really excited about the next season and the culmination of the threads that we had going on.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

This season is going to really blow some things open.  I can't wait.  "All secrets will be revealed". 

Tally ho! indeed!

King

[Jen]

I forgot about this very important link. If there's any question regarding what your character does (especially if they are a department head) this link will fill you in. Especially with regards to bridge operations:

http://www.treksinscifi.com/forum/index.php?topic=1531.0

[Jen]

Preliminary Outline (Part I) for Season Five
Please refer to this outline through out the season.


Things you may have missed in Season Four.
The telepaths on Tiberius are carrying a virus and began showing symptoms last season. Some symptoms were more subtle than others. Until now, none of these characters have suspected that they were sick...the symptoms came and went and were too random for them to say "gee, I think I am seriously ill":

1. Ensign Starstriker had a "mental breakdown". Saw a doctor and was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder by Counselor Margon

2. Sevryll exhibited occasional emotional responses and her hand trembled from time to time and she showed signs of having a fever (perspiration on forehead). She chalked it up to stress at first then she blamed the after affects of a meld with a traumatized Romulan. She believed the affects would wane.

3. Aeric James and Sevryll each experienced headaches



Here's the 411 on why they had these symptoms:
*a small portion of the information below, does not appear in the previous seasons. We're adding backstory to actual RPG content in order explain the next story.

All of the crewmembers had a physical when they came aboard the Tiberius. During Ensign Isaac Starstriker's initial medical exam, which occurred in Season Two, Doctor Lucas (a NPC doctor) noted a few peculiarities in the young Ensign's test results and found him to be the perfect candidate for a psi virus that the doctor created in secret. At this point in the story, the virus only affects telepaths and is spread through telepathic contact.

Starstriker is an emotionless telepathic being with abilities that cannot be mentioned here (RPG Member "Kinglinksr" hasn't revealed them yet). The doctor determined that these very unique characteristics could be used to progress the virus in order to transmit it to its intended victim. We'll tell you why in the next outline.

Shortly after the awards banquet (in Season Three), Ensign Starstriker had an "accident" and lapsed into a coma—this coma was the result of the virus. He was taken to Sickbay and Doctor Lucas contacted Commander Sevryll and insisted that a mind meld was the only treatment left to attempt. The commander does not perform melds often and initially refused because of the dangers involved, but after Doctor Lucas pushed...she reluctantly agreed to help. The meld worked, and Starstriker was brought back, but the virus jumped to Sevryll and began to develop in her, all throughout Season Three and Four.

You may remember that at the beginning of Season Four, Starstriker innocently probed the minds of the entire crew, looking to gain a "general mood" before their next mission. After Starstriker did this, almost everyone onboard Tiberius was infected by the virus—though the non-telepaths were simply carriers with no symptoms. The telepaths are the first victims. They include: Captain Quinn, Doctor Peterson, Lieutenant Aeric James and Commander Sevryll and her mother Doctor Sareth.

These main characters will not be affected by the virus through out the entire story. This is their opportunity to keep Tiberius going IF the CO and XO are Out of commission:

Counselor Margon and his son (resistant)

Lieutenant K'Tan (not aboard at the time of the probe, yet will remain resistant)

Lieutenant JG Cedric Tain (resistant)

Lieutenant Commander K'ararth (resistant)

And any Newbie or regular RPG player who wishes to be unaffected...it's up to you.

During the journey to Vulcan, the virus will mutate within the crew. This is when the rest of the crew will begin to show symptoms and will become ill. We will tell you when to start dotting your story with them.

Note: No one has discovered the virus as of yet and it will continue to elude a cure until the end of the season. Absolutely no silver bullet, Supercalifragilistic Magic Snake Oil cures are allowed. There is a plan in place for how the cure will be developed and we will let you all know when it will need to take place later. ;)


More information will follow in a subsequent post.

[Jen]

Here's Why The Virus was created:

Doctor Lucas sympathizes with the vulcan traditionalist who are strictly anti-reunification. In other words, this group does not wish to see their world backslide into the warmongering that ended after the sundering (the time when the violent people who didn't want to follow Surek's teachings left the planet to found Romulus). Doctor Lucas's wife is a member of this group, which employed his talents in creating the virus, intended to deter the Reunification efforts on Romulus. After the virus begins to spread, they realize it has become a monster they can't control.

Sevryll was targeted for the virus because of her father. This group orchestrated his abduction in Season Four and the sole purpose may have been to introduce the virus to Romulus through his daughter. They hoped she would meld with Krell in order to stabilize his damaged mental state... and they hoped he could then continue on in his work, spreading the virus among the supporters. Sevryll did not meld with he father, they had no time to do so, and she was concerned by the dangers of touching a damaged mind.

As the ship nears Vulcan, the virus mutates to affect the general population with a strain that seems to progress rapidly and is fatal.


Mission:
The new mission is to take Commander Sevryll's father, Krell back to Vulcan.

On the way to Vulcan:
PLEASE create at least one NPC in your character's department that you can write for in addition to your main character.  An NPC is a "non-player" character that can be anyone from a wife, husband, child, co-worker etc. You can have several if you'd like.  Developing at least one NPC will help us round out our crew and it will help you to progress our story.

On our trip to Vulcan, we can do any number of things... we can begin using our Camelot Holodeck program, play poker, have dinner together etc.  So use this time to further develop your characters and their side stories...but try not to get too complicated with your side stories...the story can be complicated enough without super crazy details.

Many of you will have an opportunity to step into command roles.  We will provide further direction as the season progresses so you don't get lost.

During the trip to Vulcan, system errors will start to plague the ship and the cause will not be known. As a new virus, this creation is not filtered from the biofilters and is very hard to detect.

The ship seems to be falling apart and you will not able to determine the cause until the end of the story. This will require engineering and science to work towards fixing the ship while medical is becoming overwhelmed by some sort of plague.

Every part of the ship will be suffering some sort of problems that will require the crew to work hard to not only survive the plague, but to make it to Vulcan.

10% of the crew will be dead by the time they reached Vulcan. Since the Telepaths have the first strain, they have been fighting it for some time and some of them will slowly become better.

Since the virus starts in Sickbay, they are going to be down a lot of Medical personal. This will give the Lower decks a chance to shine.

[wraith1701]

Cool. 8)

[Bryancd]

Hmmm.... This is kind of what turned me off with Season 4, the whole sub story which a few of you REALLY ran with. It's a great read and you all did an excellent job, don't get me wrong, but it's a litttle much for those of us, or maybe just me, who want a fun story to go along with. By doing thing like this can alienate newer players or folks who just can't spend as much time with the game. I would go away for a few days only to find volumes of posts with VERY confusing story lines. I know people like o be creative and original, but sometimes it's hard to follow and will limit the scope of participation. Just my $.0000002.

It would really help if Season 5 could have a main story line that can proceed with or without having to remember which of you are telepaths, and really did we need so many? It seems like a fun construct run amok. I became totally lost as to who was reading who's mind after a while...  :wacko

[X]

I personally think that the adoption of two story arc per season was fantastic. It rings more true to the usual two stories that happen with each episode of many trek shows. I think that the two arc were done to try to get everyone active in some part of the season.

I can understand how it might be intimidating to come in to a lot of posts to read, but at the same time, those posts, their thoughts, and the descriptions made for a far richer story. For me, having read the previous season, I think that as a whole, I've learned more about the new characters that came aboard this season as opposed to other seasons. I also saw how many of these characters grew in depth.

While I agree that a single storyline would be easier, I don't think that it could incorporate everyone in the crew as well as two stories that activly incorporate the characters. When you think about it, it's still one story. The only difference is that we get to see more of what is happening to all of those other characters that deserve to have their times in the spotlight.

[Geekyfanboy]

Hmmm.... This is kind of what turned me off with Season 4, the whole sub story which a few of you REALLY ran with. It's a great read and you all did an excellent job, don't get me wrong, but it's a litttle much for those of us, or maybe just me, who want a fun story to go along with. By doing thing like this can alienate newer players or folks who just can't spend as much time with the game. I would go away for a few days only to find volumes of posts with VERY confusing story lines. I know people like o be creative and original, but sometimes it's hard to follow and will limit the scope of participation. Just my $.0000002.

It would really help if Season 5 could have a main story line that can proceed with or without having to remember which of you are telepaths, and really did we need so many? It seems like a fun construct run amok. I became totally lost as to who was reading who's mind after a while...  :wacko

Hey Bryan..

I totally understand where you are coming from, but you have to understand that we are going on our fifth season and have been playing this RPG game for almost a year now. When we started out things were simple and as the game moved forward the writing has become better and better.

This isn't a casual rpg game that you can look at once every few weeks and post in. This rpg moves swiftly and if you don't keep up it can get a bit complicated and take some effort to follow. We want rpg-ers who really love the Star Trek world that we created. It does take effort to keep up with everyone's story but that's the same when you watch it on TV.

If you want to be a causal rpg-er that's fine, you just can't have a character in any of the key positions. If you are in a key position we expect certain amount of commitment from you. This is suppose to be fun but it does take work to keep thing going. If this turns away people that is unfortunate but that is how this rpg game is being ran.

I think Season Four was the best by far.

[Rico]

One possible idea would be after many things get wrapped up in season 5 that the next season might be a bit more of a new and fresh start.  Perhaps that way some people who haven't kept up with the last years worth of nuances and complexities can jump back in.  Just an idea.  But of course like you mention Kenny you can always run a character that's just sort of one of those that's less involved and then you can still post once in awhile.

[Bryancd]

Right, Rico, which is totally fine. I think we should try and let the story be more inclusive and anyone new coming in and reading what Jen posted above could be very intimidated by it. I know I am and I want to participate in season 5, but now have homework just to catch up! ;)

But the upside is that my character seems to be the only healthy one onboard and now is my chance to make a run for the captian!!!! :klingon :klingon

[X]

One possible idea would be after many things get wrapped up in season 5 that the next season might be a bit more of a new and fresh start.  Perhaps that way some people who haven't kept up with the last years worth of nuances and complexities can jump back in.  Just an idea.  But of course like you mention Kenny you can always run a character that's just sort of one of those that's less involved and then you can still post once in awhile.

I think that's a great idea! It's a fair balance between those people that want to move the story forward and not wait days or even weeks for someone to respond to the tag they were given. It also allows for those people that can't post much to still contribute to the story.

As for a fresh start, I think that's something that I can get behind. I think that every Trek series has had that point where they did a change in direction. It's usually symbolized by someone that either adds or loses some amount of hair. ( see Sisko and Riker for examples).

I think that this next season should be the one that ties things up and builds the foundation to the next season and all that good stuff. I trust our faithful Masters of the Story to pull something wonderful out of their hat.

[Jen]

Hmmm.... This is kind of what turned me off with Season 4, the whole sub story which a few of you REALLY ran with. It's a great read and you all did an excellent job, don't get me wrong, but it's a litttle much for those of us, or maybe just me, who want a fun story to go along with. By doing thing like this can alienate newer players or folks who just can't spend as much time with the game. I would go away for a few days only to find volumes of posts with VERY confusing story lines. I know people like o be creative and original, but sometimes it's hard to follow and will limit the scope of participation. Just my $.0000002.

It would really help if Season 5 could have a main story line that can proceed with or without having to remember which of you are telepaths, and really did we need so many? It seems like a fun construct run amok. I became totally lost as to who was reading who's mind after a while...  :wacko

I don't know how to respond to this without sounding defensive. I think you guys have known me, through my participation on the boards, well enough to know that I try to be respectful, receptive to feedback, fair and non-critical. So please consider that when you read this response.

Bryan said, "sometimes it's hard to follow and will limit the scope of participation." I understand that you would like a more casual story and feel that our creative stories limit's your scope of participation...and I'm sure there're others who think that. The thing is we had more people writing at the end of Season Four than any of the other seasons, despite the fact that we did have a few people sit out or slow down towards the end (the Holidays tend to do that).We also drew new people into the RPG, who will be participating this upcoming season. I keep up with the board stats for the RPG and see that it ranks number one for most viewed topic and number six for most responses. At the end of last season there were 8 consistent writers... six who never slowed in writing the entire season. 

I try to manage the RPG by what the active participants want from the game. It's a democracy and I've tried to keep it this way holding Skype meetings with the RPGers, creating several threads in the Out Of Character that allow people to ask questions and comment, and I make myself readily available for anyone needing help through PMs. If you're interested in reading the story and participating, all the tools for doing that are readily available.

I agree, it's not a casual story... But I don't think it ever was. As we pick up members, it has continued to evolve into a RPG that is a bit more meaty. Our writers have made it that way by collaborating with one another and developing their characters as the story goes. I've often said this is a "collaboritve writing project". It reads like a series of novels written by multiple writers not like a role playing game. And you do not have to know anything about last season. Just know everyone gets sick and we are headed to Vulcan. The purpose of the outline is to help people who like direction. We've tried to run this game as a free for all RPG, but people complain that they don't know what to do. It's not intended as "homework"...it's training wheels or floaties if you want them. I'm trying everything I know to do to make it as simple for people as possible and to include as many people as possible. I've also been giving people the opportunity to take the reigns and run the ship.


If you find that you can't keep up, and you want to, here's a suggestion that has worked for me. I hit the "notify" button on the OOC section as well as the Season. If someone posts there, I get an email that tells me someone replied. Later in the day, I go visit those sections to see what was posted. Also, If you're on the boards anyway, make it a habit to swing by and see if there is anything new. If you don't check the RPG section for a week or more, it will most definitely pile up on you . If you're skimming instead of reading it is possible to become confused. So try to check out the RPG daily and read the entire posts so you don't miss anything.

We were working on an idea for Season Six that is light and fluffy. This season is shorter so we can complete a plot and move on to another story.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

One possible idea would be after many things get wrapped up in season 5 that the next season might be a bit more of a new and fresh start.  Perhaps that way some people who haven't kept up with the last years worth of nuances and complexities can jump back in.  Just an idea.  But of course like you mention Kenny you can always run a character that's just sort of one of those that's less involved and then you can still post once in awhile.

I think that's a great idea! It's a fair balance between those people that want to move the story forward and not wait days or even weeks for someone to respond to the tag they were given. It also allows for those people that can't post much to still contribute to the story.

As for a fresh start, I think that's something that I can get behind. I think that every Trek series has had that point where they did a change in direction. It's usually symbolized by someone that either adds or loses some amount of hair. ( see Sisko and Riker for examples).

I think that this next season should be the one that ties things up and builds the foundation to the next season and all that good stuff. I trust our faithful Masters of the Story to pull something wonderful out of their hat.

I agree with what both Just X and Jen said.  We also have to keep in mind that we can't make everyone happy.  Its life...that rarely happens.  But I have to agree with Jen in that Season 4 was the best season we ever had because of the activity and interest in the story. 

But I also agree that Season 6 should be a little slower.  I have no idea what it should be about though.  I'm interested in seeing how Season 5 works out and hopefully we will continue to gain more ppl into the RPG.

King