Yeah, I don't think Rydi checks rpol, basically ever. I'll let him know folks are posting a bit here. I had to save the game from deletion a while back, which is why my user name is now listed as the game owner. I can say that Rydi is currently enrolled in a PhD program and has an ~19 month old son now, so he's kinda low on free time.

Speaking for myself, I'd be able to make occasional posts, maybe. I'm now on the tail end of a master's program and starting to write up my thesis. Its nice to have a distraction from it every now and then.

Yes? I'm game, I've actually thought about making a similar post on multiple occassions, but been a bit too embarrassed to do so since I flaked out on my own game without much explanation.  But if people want to start up again I'm happy to facilitate, albeit at a somewhat slow pace.  As Avil stated, I'm in year 2 of an educational psychology doctoral program, teaching two classes, contracting as a school psychologist to several online charter schools, and raising my son... It's been a busy couple years, and not slowing down.



Funny, I've thought about that several times.  I'd chip in a few dollars if you know a good artist.  As for closure, maybe we can get a bit of that now? I would like that, as I feel we were at an interesting and promising point when we left off.  I also think there are some other pathways to explore if people wanted to... Several alt timelines were touched on, and there is the potential for alt characters in the same setting.  Just depends on what people want.


I appreciate that, I would hate to lose the writing.  I highly value my experiences in this game.  Also, I don't feel particularly proprietary toward our game, it belongs to everyone.  Comstock or you (or anyone else that is interested from the original crew) should feel free to do some storytelling or administrative work on the game, if you so choose.

Is it just the four of us?  And where were people interested in picking things up?

Not certain where to pick things back up. I still love Solitaire, but things were getting pretty damn large scale. We're we to pick up again I thinlove I might like to do so with new characters. There is very little at this point that can effectively oppose our various agendas, and I find it easier to role play with a power structure rather than being one unto itself.

Or perhaps something new. I find myself more time these days, or at least a smart phone. Perhaps kick it forward to Trinity?

I have been thinking about this game a lot too lately.  I would love to have the chance to explore and play out Serenade.  As for storylines, I am open to most things.  I know that there are more than a couple Terrats in the party, so if that is played out she could explore Dao Qi Meng.

Hi all,

I'd be down to start up a game.  I'd love a move toward trinity, or a game with new aberrants set further in the timeline.

I've been thinking about what people have said.

So that you are aware of the options I'm willing to work on:
Present time/primary reality - space warfare with an alien threat using your current characters
Present time/primary reality - new characters dealing with the New Tomorrow reality we've created
Present time/alternate reality - events in the dark reflection dimension Sol initiated, either as characters from that reality, or as your current characters shifted over to that reality
Past time/primary reality - ancient aliens and novas during the Babylonian/Egyptian/Greek/Etruscan civilizations using the same or new characters
Future time/canon reality - exploring the future that results from the nova age, either as new or old characters

If we move up to trinity era, were you all wanting to play a) new characters (and if so, psions/psiads or some sort of nova/aberrant), or b) the same characters (and if so, shifted forward in time, or actually aged further)?

Or are there other options that interest you from those listed above?  One thing to consider is that we could do two separate options simultaneously in different topics.  Like explore the present through new characters, and then explore an alternate reality with your current characters.  Only thing I would want to avoid is overlapping experiences with the same characters due to complications of telling coherent personal stories (e.g. exploring the past and the future simultaneously with the same characters).
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:56, Mon 06 Feb 2017.

Well.  Well well well.  Boy I'm covered in rust.

I think I could be persuaded to come on back.  In the intervening three years I managed to crawl out from under some grad work and make a proper career for myself, so yeah I think I could find the time.

All of the various ideas seem good.  Heck I am just glad to see my old friends are mostly alive and well.

I would enjoy playing in current time/primary reality (I would enjoy playing Serenade as a mentor to new characters in Team Tomorrow) or past/primary reality (a race to save tomorrow by correcting the mistakes of the past)

Omigosh! You guys! I am so happy that we are thinking of starting up again.

I don't know that I have a lot of preference for what we do, except that if I keep playing Gale, I'd have to play the post-chrysalis version where she's jaded. The family plot ended up hitting too close to real life for me and I'd rather not dwell in that.

I'm also happy to come up with new characters to play.

I don't think I've expressed a preference, but I do have some preference for continuing to play Gravitas for at least a while. I feel like there are some things to finish up in his story before I retire him as a PC. Personally, I've not had as much interest in the AU that cropped up in the game than the primary timeline.

Who has not undergone or planned to enter into chrysalis at this point in the game?

Perhaps a few years of timeskip?

Comstock has not undergone chrysalis.  But he was never really meant to be in charge of complicated things and did not really like all this spiritualism.  The world of special operations, intrigue, and spy plots was a little much, I think, and he was being pressed past his comfort zone.  Zero, Gravitas, Impetus, Phantasm and others were supposed to be the smart ones ... Comstock was meant to be a tank.  Someone who could take punishment and stand without fear for his life.  Not a god or a politician or a visionary.

So what I'm saying is ... whatever we do, if Comstock is still around, I want him to be out of the spotlight. Background character.  As a plotline his Vigilance group looks to have not worked out, and probably disintegrated into the Aberrants.  And from the way things were heading, the Aberrant Wars were going to be something that would really hurt the man.  So Comstock is probably "retired" and swimming in quantum taint and problems.  Maybe he's just a humble space construction worker for Gravitas' projects.  Or someone who punches aliens all day.  Or maybe he's just moved back out to rural Nevada.  Or something.  Maybe bring him out of retirement if the time is right.

I'll bring on some other sort of new fresh-faced character.

So, I'm of two minds on what I would want.  On the one hand, like Grav said, I think there are a lot of unresolved things for all the characters that I would like to get closure on.  Imp's kids.  Gale's changing outlook on self/others/life.  Sol's past and alt self.  'Stock's heroic journey ( http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm ) especially, since I've always viewed him as kind of the central POV character, and his story as the primary morality play for the game as a whole.

But at the same time, I feel like the characters are pretty big fish on a little world at this point.  Serenade and Flare not so much, they are in a good spot to be central characters, but the others are crazy powerful, and will overwhelm many of the more common story paths that tend to pop up in games.  That doesn't preclude storytelling with them, but it requires different stories than you would use with other characters.  That makes me feel like we should explore some new territory with some other characters.

Personally, I'd like the following:

1) a story thread that advances the plot by several years, maybe even moving us up to the current real-world date (02/2017).  Have the primary characters driven to the margins by various personal issues (e.g. Imp didn't become president because he went on a mad hunt for Apostle and to resolve his own storylines; Serenade decided to become THE pop icon for the planet instead of being a full time 2TMer), then see them come back together to fight threats both home-grown (social issues involving aberrants/utopia/terrats/etc.) and external (aliens, reality-hopping novas).  This would be the high-power story path, and define how the aberrant war and the following dark times develop.

2) at least one story thread that explores some of the stuff we've only been alluding to the whole time.  What's up with all the alternate timeline stuff?  Ancient aliens, WTF?  I think this would be a good place for some new characters, anything from trinity era psions to daredevil heroes in any era.  Maybe take a poll and see what alternate story we can all sort of agree on exploring?

3) Finally, maybe we could do a thread exploring the mirror-verse we've dealt with on several occasions, and what happened there.  Why did it get all dark and miserable?  How did everyone else turn out?  This also has the side effect of letting people "stretch their legs" a bit, in that they don't have to restrain their powers for the sake of setting maintenance.  They can go all-out and explore just how abusive high-end novas can be, but in an interesting way.

Mirror-verse was very much just an opportunity for me to play around with ideas that wouldn't fit in the main story, and that parallel universes are canon in setting with powers like Crosstime Travel or whatever it was called. That would necessitate infinite spectrum, there would eventually be one that gets bad enough to start affecting others.

However, hopping dimensions would be a good way to give us a challenge again, because little than the whole world uniting against us should pose us a physical threat. You might just get that if you go dimension hopping though.

I never did finish that plotline, hope I still have notes somewhere, three computers later.

I am very down with a timeskip, at the least.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:26, Sat 11 Feb 2017.

I agree that, at minimum, we probably need a time skip to reboot the game with. That ensures that we don't have to remember exactly what was going on when we stopped, because, lets be fair, we're human, there's like a million posts in this game, and it mostly happened like 3+ years ago.

As an aside, and to probably give everyone that "damn, I'm old" feeling, the first in-game posts for this game went up on March 28, 2009. That was almost 8 years ago.

With regard to time-travel/cross-time dimension skipping schinanigans: I've always had the time travel and cross-time powers on Grav's 'to-do' list of powers. He can probably facilitate that sort of thing if we head that direction at all.

I like what I am hearing.  Also, I let the Hell Kraken know we were all here, and he might be game to make a different character to join in if we get some traction.  He deleted his RPOL account, however, so if he comes back we'll have to two-factor authenticate him.

The more I think on it, the more a bit of world-hopping and dimension-sliding sounds like a good idea.  I always did like the idea of parallel universe Comstock (instead of "I can't die, I should do what's right," just "I can't die, I should do what I want") and I believe he was defined as a mercenary in one of those parallel universe peeks.  Easy antagonist fodder.

With regard to Comstock-Prime ... I am flattered that he's taken a central kind of role, but if he is on a Campbellian hero's journey then we are solidly into "the Ordeal".  Until he resolves that central conflict - that he came to make a better world and to save mankind and has learned that he cannot do both - you're going to have to drag him out of retirement.  And he's quite heavy.

Come visit old man Comstock for advice, or to chastise him for not donning the eufiber again, but he's not really feeling the whole secret agent and intrigue thing.  Don't worry: if you find him a DarkSeid-esque badguy, or a bunch of superpsychic aliens, or Caestus Pax or something, and he'll suit up again.

Maybe the way to use the alternate universe is just for some divination?  Gravitas and Solitaire try to get information about their world's future by checking in on the other universe.  The real question I have is "who will take center stage?"  Seems like a Gravitas or Solitaire thing.  Maybe Gale?  She can literally and metaphorically stretch her wings, and post-Chrysalis she can finally redefine her own destiny.

At this point, the plot has moved on: we are no longer thinking in terms of the Earth and the World, but in terms of the Novas exploring the limits of their power and ability.  We will have to decide if we even care about the place of humanity and an ungrateful Earth in the context of our new discoveries.

Just because I didn't say it before. I just wanted to let you all know how much getting the gang back together means to me. I had just turned 20 back in 09 when we started and this game was a significant part of my life in the years that followed. Now I've just turned 28 and I'd still been missing it.

Just... I missed you all, and I'm glad you're back.

I agree with all of these ideas.  Another idea could be to pick up some new characters in the modern day stuff with lower xp to play with Serenade and Flare.  I think Impetus had started doing this with Paidrag (is that right?) before the game stopped.

Also echoing Sol on this.  So happy that everyone is popping out of the woodwork!

I'm excited about all of this interest to revisit the game!  I will enjoy any direction that we want to take it.  There are some setting things that I would love to explore, if they haven't been beaten to death already:

1. How does chrysalis change a person and what are the terragen becoming?
2. What are the long-term implications of purifying oneself through the martial art form?
3. What are the children of novas? How will the world governments classify children of terrats for instance?

After that, any of the plots that are played with are all good.

Thank you for getting the ball rolling Comstock. I was going to set up something similar tonight, so that people would be able to start posting over the weekend.  And its a solid set of posts to start things on.

I'm going to set up another thread in the next few days for one of the alternate plots we've discussed.  I'd kind of like to do a poll on which ones people want to see most... Is there a polling option on here?
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:13, Fri 17 Feb 2017.

Polling? No. We could probably use SurveyMonkey or something though, as an alternative.

Turns out I hadn't deleted the account after all, I just hadn't logged on in years and couldn't remember any of the login details.  But such problems are easily circumvented.  So, I Live Again!

RPOL desperately needs a "Like" button.

Hrmmm, what has Sol been up to for 10 years.... I have a few thoughts, but what would you expect Sol to get up too? I need something to focus in on.

You know, I'm not sure.  Sol was always big on the independence thing, but that makes her hard to predict.  She wanted to do good, help people, but not directly intercede and rob them of their agency.  She wanted to explore life, but she was running out of things to explore, especially without causing a stir.  Even though she didn't have any qualms about being a nova (yay teras!) she was a bit cut off from many social experiences.  And there was always her pesky quantum perceptions pulling her into weirdness.  I think she could go in a lot of different directions.  I will say I'm most curious about how she approaches her relationships with her former teammates, and the estrangement that seems to have occurred between many of them over the course of the 10 year jump.

In other news, there is a new thread up.  I didn't post much in it, primarily because the mirrorverse was never my idea.  It developed organically from other people's ideas, and I'd rather see that continue.  I'll post later in the thread to tie things together, but I'll let others set the stage.  I would like to include some references in the spoiler section to posts that deal with the mirrorverse though; if any of you come across those posts as you peruse our sprawling game, let me know.