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Canon for The Change?
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Topic Started: Feb 14 2011, 03:00 PM (316 Views)
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Dinah May Anderson
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Feb 14 2011, 03:00 PM
Post #1
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With Nyssa and her background, interest has apparently been generated in some to have more canon about The Change and what exactly happened to the world in 2023.
To me that raises two questions: How vague or detailed should anything "officially" established about The Change be, and what will the consequences be of establishing such canon.
The second question is difficult to answer without answering the first one first. But one possibility of what happened during the Change floated around is a blending of dimensions, elements of one dimension flowing over into another, that "another" being the world EoM happens in.
That does sound like as good an explanation as any for what the Change was, but it doesn't sit terribly well with me, as I am afraid people might use it as an explanation to cobble together whatever character they want, and explain their origins without taking the larger setting into account one little bit. And that's something I always thought a bit problematic on the old site. At the old site there were what I would call... "reality bubbles". Some people posted as if it was a fantasy world, others as if it was a sci-fi setting, and others as if it was a contemporary setting. To me that was always something that made it terribly difficult for me to imagine the setting, and I write best when I can visualize a setting, when things come together in a coherent picture in my mind. That's why I changed the setting description and mentioned that things here would be recognizable to someone from our times - to prevent the creation of "setting tribes". I would very very much prefer whatever canon might be established about The Change does not give people an excuse to go back there any more than accommodating previously existing character from the old EoM already has to allow for.
Another potential problem I see with establishing canon about The Change is that once we start on it there is no telling where we will end, i.e. how many additional questions will be raised by one question answered. If X happened because of Y, why was Y even there? And if that is explained, what will X lead to? A, B, C, all or some of those, and what will the lead to? We could enter endless debates that will - most likely - never lead to a decisive conclusion. Are those in favor really prepared to go there? The only way around that would be to be vague about what happened, but, if so, why go into it at all? Things are vague as they are. I honestly can't quite understand what benefit some of you see in establishing more canon about The Change. What good will it do?
I am not saying that I will stand in the way of some changes here - but those changes have to be decently well argued for, and promise some real benefits, before I agree to them. So convince me.
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Nyssa
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Feb 15 2011, 08:19 PM
Post #2
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I had thought it best to keep vague on the entirety of "being The Destroyer" in my profile and was accused of rushing the section by Draiton Ieshitah, character moderator.
Dinah has sent me a Private Message to ask me "what exactly I saw in my visions before the Change in 2023 happened?"
I hope to further expand on my character and answer her question here.
What I had in mind as Nyssa's back story was that though there are demons and dragons that are clearly older than Nyssa herself (and succinctly Pre-2023), this is how I cared to explain it.
In the old times of our players, in long reaches of history, a rift had opened. Whether it was by outside forces, cosmic energies or a group of warlocks itching for a good laugh, that knowledge is lost to us. What we do know is of the fantastical creatures living in our midst in secret is in legend and mythos only. Lycans and vampires, dragons and demons. The things of fairy tales. The Japanese have their kitsunes and nekos, the Irish their leprechauns, sirens, the Grecian their gorgons and the Arabic djinn, plus many more round our our global folklore.
We have lived our lives in this mythology, some of us finding belief in the lore, others scoff at the idea. A perfect analogy of this would be of the Canadian Sasquatch or the Mexican Chupacabra. Some have claimed to see these animals, while others call them hoaxes.
In the Era of Manipulation world they were real from the start, choosing to lie out their lives in solitude, away from the cruelty and curiosity of man who only wish them dead to log and analyze. Their numbers had dwindled as the many, many years progressed, naturally.
What Nyssa sees on the approach of her eighteenth birthday is a new portal/rift opening. Being of a curious mind herself, encouraged by her paranormal interests and higher intellect than those in her class, she investigates the images and without intention activates the long-forgotten portal, or activates a beacon or signal that calls to aliens or otherworldly beasts.
This portal/beacon I had planned on putting in a desert or someplace she could survey via Google Earth 3.6 (or whatever version there may be in 2023).
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I am doing my best to please my master, even if it means losing myself in the process.
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Hex
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Feb 15 2011, 09:25 PM
Post #3
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I like it. I was thinking it might be just "Earth 1061" or something like my comic books do. Just an alternate universe and then the universes colliding. But I definitely like the portal idea over the beacon. Or perhaps the change in the world is since Nyssa is smart and health-care orientated she is on a placement for an advanced science class where the scientists are attempting to replicate those species in folklore (we all think it'll be the drs that fuck up and give us real-world zombies, don't see how big of a stretch that is) and maybe Nyssa accidentally gives the wrong reagent or something?
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Plays: Modrid Brennan | Ruin Cortez | Brinley O'Connor
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Nyssa
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Feb 15 2011, 10:13 PM
Post #4
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I much prefer your idea, Siusan. It does seem quite "realistic" and plausible but I am unsure how reagents could affect people so differently, but I suppose I could accidentally create an air borne allergen or virus that mutates people into a permanent state.
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I am doing my best to please my master, even if it means losing myself in the process.
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Tara
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Feb 16 2011, 06:36 AM
Post #5
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If the creation of nekos, kitsunes, and so on, were a medical accident we would still have to use at least part of what Nyssa suggested to explain the presence of vampires, werewolves, etc. It's pretty obvious that those existed before the Change.
Also, I am not so sure the medical accident explanation could account for Nyssa's special abilities, i.e. her visions and healing powers. Even if we ignore the visions, that her and only her gained those specific healing powers during the Change (whereas it affected millions of others in quite similar ways) might not be all that realistic.
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Nyssa
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Feb 16 2011, 08:55 AM
Post #6
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Why is it unrealistic that I were to Change after the Change? I had no intention of having healing powers prior to 2023, the visions are something that people currently have, a higher than normal intuition or pre-cognizance. I have no healing powers before the Change. Because of my strong desire to heal and right my wrongs, the powers develop.
And Tara, how is it realistic that I am the only one who's been mutated into my form but unrealistic that my powers are specific to me as well?
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I am doing my best to please my master, even if it means losing myself in the process.
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Modrid Brennan
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Feb 16 2011, 09:41 AM
Post #7
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Loving Dead Girl
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I think perhaps what Tara/Dinah are saying is that maybe you shouldn't just have healing powers? Maybe your power is to destroy more? The power to manipulate life as it were. You can give it, or take it away[life or supernatural powers.] Granted this is God-like, but if you play your cards carefully you might be able to get away from it. Perhaps you can discover your "take it away" skill if you become scorned by a special master. If you fall in love and then discover he's just not that into you? Considering you sound as though your personality might still be vaguely juvenile (personality in stasis from when she was 18) this isn't that far of a stretch and I'd like to see that rp'd.
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Modrid Brennan: Everyone's Favourite Brand of Poison Plotnotes updated frequently
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Dinah May Anderson
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Feb 16 2011, 01:01 PM
Post #8
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- Nyssa
- Feb 16 2011, 08:55 AM
Why is it unrealistic that I were to Change after the Change? I had no intention of having healing powers prior to 2023, the visions are something that people currently have, a higher than normal intuition or pre-cognizance. I have no healing powers before the Change. Because of my strong desire to heal and right my wrongs, the powers develop.
And Tara, how is it realistic that I am the only one who's been mutated into my form but unrealistic that my powers are specific to me as well? I know you have no healing powers before the Change, but I find it a bit far-fetched that you developed your healing powers just because you had a very strong desire to heal people. There must be more to it, or anyone with a very strong desire could develop powers to fit them. So - as I see it - either Nyssa was already something special, so sort of mutant perhaps, or the development of her powers is directly linked to the events of the Change. Which leads me back to my question why she would be (as far as we know) the only person in the world affected the way she was?
That aside, I am rather fond of the more magical explanation for the Change for several reasons.
1 - What you said in your first post above fits the established "EoM facts" very well. Pretty much all of it is already implied in the setting summary and profiles of various characters. The only difference is establishing a key part in it for Nyssa. But otherwise it fits very nicely.
2 - If we accept that the EoM world always had a supernatural element to it (even if not many people were aware of it before the Change) - and I think we have to accept that as canon - I don't see why a scientific explanation for the Change would be more "realistic". Magic is real in the EoM world and has probably been so for thousands of years.
3 - If people changes into nekos, or shapeshifters, or whatever en-masse because of some sort of "mutagenic virus", the spread would have not been instantaneous, and I think that would have led to a very different world, with the changed being treated as victims of a disease. The spread of viruses through a population should have been recognizable, so I am fairly certain people would have figured it was an infection or something akin to one. That could have meant isolation camps on a massive scale, in some countries mass killings of the infected, and other such drastic measures. am not so sure if that scenario would lead to the current EoM world.
3a - If it really was a disease that changed the world, wouldn't have someone discovered what had caused it long ago, perhaps even found an antidote? I find it difficult to believe that a lab accident like that could go unnoticed or lead to something that is absolutely irreversible (aside from Nyssa changing someone back).
4 - I really think the magical/supernatural explanations allows us more freedom than the scientific one, to account for the more magical and supernatural elements and characters of the setting.
What I am missing a bit from this whole discussion is if we really want or need more canon for the Change, and - if so - what level of detail is wanted or needed. I think it could be prudent to decide on that first, before the details are worked out in... well... detail.
(As an aside, Nyssa: If the visions people these days claim to have are comparable to what you describe in your character profile - and if they are really real - is something I am somewhat skeptical about, and others might feel the same way. Perhaps that is a topic better left out of this debate?)
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Deveraux Dixon
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Feb 16 2011, 01:32 PM
Post #9
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Love is cursed by Monogamy
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I'm sure I'll be hearing a lot of flack back for this, but I'm really not fond of this discussion. I would almost rather the site have a completely disjointed origin than this discussion.
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Dinah May Anderson
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Feb 16 2011, 03:25 PM
Post #10
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- Deveraux Dixon
- Feb 16 2011, 01:32 PM
I'm sure I'll be hearing a lot of flack back for this, but I'm really not fond of this discussion. I would almost rather the site have a completely disjointed origin than this discussion. Can you please help me understand this better, Dev, as I am not sure if I am reading you correctly? I am not sure what you mean by "completely disjointed origin"? Do you mean to say that we should not bother at all? And if so, would that mean that everything goes - anything at all?
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Zareb
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Feb 16 2011, 04:10 PM
Post #11
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Zareb Raine
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What I get by his statement, is that the origins shouldn't be stated. That time period should be more considered like the Dark Age where things happened, but were never recorded except for a few rather empty writings. Because of whatever happened, it threw everything into the dark until later time. What exactly happened was never recorded because it shocked the entirety of the human race, and no one wanted to let that information be remembered, because of it's nature.
Then again, I could be completely wrong about Dev's Statements.
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Slaves: Zareb Raine - Deveraux Tyr Grenh -
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Nyssa
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Feb 16 2011, 06:02 PM
Post #12
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It can't be 'in the Dark Age' because it happened in like twelve yrs our future. There would be a record and people would know why/how as common knowledge. People know why wars start, etc.
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I am doing my best to please my master, even if it means losing myself in the process.
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Deveraux Dixon
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Feb 16 2011, 09:00 PM
Post #13
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Love is cursed by Monogamy
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I'm not saying that everything goes, but I think nit's obvious that everyone has their own different opinion as to how this went down. It's just irritating to watch people go back and forth on an issue that most people don't take into consideration when they make profiles anyway.
Especially after hearing what people had to say in the Cbox the other day.
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Dinah May Anderson
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Feb 19 2011, 02:44 AM
Post #14
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Okay, so lets see if we can't form all of this into a (somewhat) coherent picture. I think a lot of what Nyssa said in her first post above is already stated in the setting description, or implied in the profiles of several old - and new - characters. And there may be a way for Nyssa to keep her character profile as it is, i.e. with her playing a pivotal role in a world-wide change, without setting anything in stone for the EoM background. But I'll leave her to post about it.
For now I would like to propose the following addition to the setting information, in the hopes that it solves most potential problems (changes highlighted):
- Setting Information
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Now the year is 2120, and the caste system of masters and slaves is firmly in place almost all over the world. Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds over the last century, some of it influenced by artifacts that shifted dimensions with their owners in 2023, but it would still be recognizable to someone from before the change. In some places the dimensional barriers are still weak, allowing even those without magical abilities to enter small pockets of other worlds, but the paths to those exotic, otherworldly locations are few and far between, and often difficult to find.
What I mean by "small pockets" is that there exist ... "overlap zones" where the borders between worlds are somewhat fluid. But those are small areas, and most travellers between worlds will be drawn back to their own reality if the stray too far from the border, i.e. they are attached to their own dimension with something like an "ethereal rubber band" that can be stretched only so far. Only a few beings can permanently cross the barriers, be it by using magic, innate dimension-hopping abilities (e.g. demons), or perhaps because they are part of both worlds by way of a mixed heritage (read Kitana's bio for something that might fit this possibility).
That way we can have some pretty exotic locations (or cat shops) in the far corners of the world - and characters from those places - without running the risk that suddenly the elven kingdom of Oregon or the dwarven mines of NORAD will become part of the EoM canon.
I await your comments and opinions.
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Nyssa
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Feb 19 2011, 03:10 AM
Post #15
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So if I were to come from another dimension, and be the Destroyer in that universe... I could conceivably be the one that opened the portal in that universe and got transferred into this one, that would be acceptable? I could have still the need to be good and not affect this world.
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I am doing my best to please my master, even if it means losing myself in the process.
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