Planning for Book 2: Chapter 1

[Simey]

You'd think after two or three seasons he'd be applying for positions on other space stations if his management team weren't giving him the opportunity to develop. At the very least he should have contacted Human Resources. But did Deep Space 8 or Deep Space 10 never have any vacancies? Or were they over-established with contracted staff hours as well? Maybe he could have taken a career-break for a season or two - travelled a bit, taught English to the Vargle colony on GCSE D+?

The Irish one, yeah? I remember the face. Though I can't really cope with Star Trek!

[Doomy]

I'm sure DS8 or DS10 would have welcomed an engineer of Mr. O'Brien's talents, but DS9 was the only station where PLOT was HAPPENING so I imagine he felt that was the best place to be.
While his rank might have been bolstered by transferring to a quieter post, he had a young family to think about and would have had to take a fairly substantial pay cut to not keep them in the line of fire for all those episodes.

[Simey]

Ah, the curse of being characters in a television drama. You'd think there'd eventually have been a mutiny and they'd have chucked the TV crew off the station in order to have a quiet life!

[crysis]

Jesus, I go to work for a few hours and you guys write two pages of posts!

In referral to 15 Zipps... don't tempt me. Naw, there's only been the two Zipps, though Cloe posed as a third Zipp for a brief time before revealing herself to the Slavemaster. Really, the history of the Zipps is pretty easy to relate.

In short, Zipp was thought to be the reincarnation of Jyhipp (pronounced roughly the same way) who was a Cat Goddess in the tribes. But Zipp was feared by her tribe and eventually outcast, with her tail cut off. She almost died but was found by Tyrenis of the Sages who raised her to be his second and gave her the sword Senoria. Eventually she returned to the tribes in time to stop them from starting a war with humanity but then was killed by a Helghast.

During her time as a sage, Zipp was given a jewel by Purple Turtle, who was planning on making her his second because she had a unique view of what it meant to be both a minority and a noble. The jewel, which contained Purple Turtle's powers, was stolen by a young wolf girl named Cloe who was corrupted by it. She became obsessed with Zipp, whom she thought to be her mother, and used Slavemaster to help her gain access to Zipp's tomb where she fought Tyrenis and lost. In losing, the spirit of Purple Turtle was cleansed from her, but she retained much of his power and much of her madness. She has since played Magnamund from the shadows, ending up being on the edge of much of the plots that have enveloped the country. She was last seen when she held a tournament that took participants on a search for relics across Magnamund, though some say she was part of the Yellow Robes.

And the Yellow Robes? They were started by the sages that survived the Night of Fire and led by the second Zipp, who had no relation to the first but was considered her reincarnation. This Zipp struggled to live up to her name and mostly was involved in politics, running the Yellow Robes, who were a sort of Magnamund Red Cross. However, she has now lost her life in Eshnar and most likely the Yellow Robes will disintegrate without her, unless Cloe truly has infiltrated their ranks...

... in which case they are really in for one hell of a ride.

[Beowuuf]

Jan 15, 2010 18:29:23 GMT -5 Simey said:

... and Beo seems somehow to know everything...

And this is the secret - you just post! I had followed the WW thread for the current chapter I posted in (I think), and had read some or all of the summaries. As of this moment (three or four years down the line), I still have not read (I don't think) chapters 11, 12 nor 13! And maybe even chapters 10 and 9!

So yeah, the real idea is to just post, throw some hooks into the world (maybe reference some things that are references) and if you later find out they are wrng, hand wave them away or make a joke out of them.

For example, there is a comment going around about Simey being 'Lord Simey', and it even became a small plot point to show the haphazard organisation of the initial MKC, and how it could be abused. Why did it come about? Because Simey was the head of the MKC forums on the old TotS, and had reached a postcount rank enough to be a 'Lord'. Hence I refered to him obliquely as such to start with.

Of course, I didn't realise at the time the SImey in the WW was a totally different entity. It's been fun knowing I'd buy it back eventually. I could have just ognored that mistake and no one owuld have cared

So yeah, just post really. If you have some questions about where you will be dumped or who you will intereact with, you already know what to do, so just go for it!


Edit: Oops, I started at page 5 and missed page 6! Apologies!

[Beowuuf]

Lol, Zipp, you do realise you've refered to at least one event and two characters that I've since removed from the 'story so far...' summary, right? That's the sort of thing you need to qualify with brief descriptions!

Doomy, to answer your question, who are Zipp's 15 incarnations? Doesn't matter! They make for phenominal reading when you go back over the history of the West Watch, and matter not one bit for your posting now! It's this sort of history that seems imposing, but isn't usually, and we're trying to make even less so now. Sera Vashin is Zipp's new character, all others are dead or gone, and so it's a clean slate.

As for who Simey is - he's a White Knight, and that's all you need to know. As for who Beowuuf is - well, you know everything about him already. Wolf creature. Vakeros Knight. Done Who is eviltb? Again, you know exactly who he is - a bugger NAK

You'll do fine!

Just to explain some of Zipp's references:
Purple Turtle = Archdruid, though served 'balance' not evil and saw it as the Cener's true position to ensure Aon did not tip too far one way of the other. Disappeared.
Slavemaster = a powerful Cener Druid
Night of Fire = due to Helghast infiltration, the order of the Sages of Lyris was destroyed and Lyris became a little bit of a distatorship. Maerin's first few posts give a flavour of how it became.

Shame the old tots died, I'd been updating the Tome of the New Order with all the explanations and so on

[Doomy]

So I've been talking to Al and he feels like coming out of retirement to rejoin the WW, giving me an experienced poster to work with and generally keep me right on dwarven lore.

He's already come up with an introduction post for me and wants to know when the next chapter/book will open for business.

So... when?

[crysis]

Oh indeed, my aim wasn't to scare anyone away with my history! I just like telling it, it was kind've an epic story helped by the grand writing skills of Slavemaster, Patrick, and later Simey (who still uses Armadalus)!

But as Beowuuf says, one of the reasons I created Sera Veshin was so that no one would have to read back that far to understand what's going on (including myself!)

[Beowuuf]

Oooh, that's so cool! Though makes me sad I NPC'd his character a little.

I'll throw him the small amount of references I put to him previously...

I'd guess a few weeks at least, althoguh there's no need to have you introduce yourself into the narratove in the next book. If the introduction is outside of the army, feel free to post it now to start the sense of foreshadowing for the next chapter

[Beowuuf]

Actually, I've just realised I was pretty cever with keeping Al's invovlement to a minimum, the action joined just after he had reported on whatever happened in Kalte in his last mission Maybe one day he'll have flashbacks to resolve that!

I did have him nodding every so often at the Knights' Council first meeting, shame he coulnd't have joined in

[Al]

Jan 16, 2010 14:34:08 GMT -5 Beowuuf said:

Actually, I've just realised I was pretty cever with keeping Al's invovlement to a minimum, the action joined just after he had reported on whatever happened in Kalte in his last mission Maybe one day he'll have flashbacks to resolve that!

LOL - it is mentioned in passing in my post!

[Doomy]

Yaay, Al's now officially back on the boards!
Haven't seen that avatar in forever.

[Beowuuf]

i know! three cheers!

[Doomy]

I'll go first.

Hip hip!

[Al]

NightHunter died? How... (I just discovered this by reading this thread)

And thanks for the welcome back guys!