Thread and Queens

[miashin]

Here are a couple of plot ideas for the board that came up in c-box chat that I would like to hear everyone's opinions and ideas on. They are not necessarily related but they could be connected to each other with some good plotting.

Queens
First of all is a detail Whim mentioned, and that is the Weyr's lack of Queens. Whim pointed out that it's pretty unusual to just have the one single Queen in the weyr. Making this into a potential plot point questions that need to be answered are:

"Why are there so few Queens, especially during a Pass?"
And
"What could decrease the number of Queens so subtly that nobody (both characters and NPCs) haven't noticed the absence yet?"

In the c-box we came up with one idea: Something could potentially be affecting the Queen's clutches, preventing them from laying Queen eggs. What that something would have to be decided before implementing the plot. Whim mentioned not wanting something too apocalyptic.


Thread
Another plot idea was a little something to spice threadfall RP up (Thread deserves not to be left out of the mutation round robin). The basic idea is that the Thread itself changes in some way, be that gaining intelligence (of its own or being controlled by an intelligence), changing its fall patterns (such as moving away from dragon protected areas and even going so far as to move against the wind to avoid dragons), or even becoming more/less toxic.

Whatever the change is it affects the way riders have to deal with threadfall, hopefully making the 'thread' more reactive and threadfall rp something other than 'go out, burn, come back for more stone, burn some more, repeat, get threadscored when that becomes stale, etc.'


In the c-box we tried to think of ways that these two events could be connected (some geneticist colonists left in one of the orbiting ships only just waking up out of stasis?) but that isn't a necessity.

Can anybody else think of ways to implement these plots/ideas?

[Whim]

I should clarify: by 'not too apocalyptic,' my concern is primarily 'not too apocalyptic unless everyone agrees.' Cat's Paw, as I created it, was on the lighter end of sites, which (I think) is evident. Personally, I enjoy apocalypses as much as any other plots, but it does make a much setting than Cat's Paw currently is, and I don't want to drag everyone into that if half the people here hate the idea.

Also, a last variation that I thought of: I have difficulty thinking of thread as anything but pure destruction, so mutations that don't have to do with more dead eggs are a bit difficult for me to imagine coming from thread. On the other hand, Thread comes from a mysterious, unknown, far away part of space; if thread somehow originates there, what else might?

[ASTROLOGICAL!!]

Nov 22, 2012 6:14:54 GMT -5 miashin said:

"Why are there so few Queens, especially during a Pass?"
And
"What could decrease the number of Queens so subtly that nobody (both characters and NPCs) haven't noticed the absence yet?"

The logical solution to this could easily be red star radiation, or just the fact that queens aren't being laid. The other Weyrs may be full and Mareth may be past her prime.

Alternate idea, though: since apparently prince-ranks can cross-impress, maybe a queen did and it's considered a sign of ill omen. It's not the actual reason but some people have tinfoil hats and are barking "CONSPIRACY, THEY'RE TURNING THE NATURAL ORDER UPSIDE DOWN" and in actuality, it's just low percentages of Queen births.


The thought of seeing where the Red Star comes from and where Thread itself comes from is also interesting. And it could lead to more conflict than just killer string. I'd be all for it.

[miashin]

I love the thought that it's something simple like multiple circumstances combining for low queen births, and that nothing would actually be wrong with them. It could give momentum to the Green Revolution plotline without actually changing the dragons much at all.

Personally, an idea I had always toyed with was that 'thread' seeded Pern. That is to say, Pern was a lifeless world until the Red Star brought Thread and other things from the Oort Cloud to the Planet. Could always play it as a new wave of 'seeds' coming to Pern?

[ASTROLOGICAL!!]

New wave of seeds could be cool.

...And then we have to wonder exactly what Thread's purpose is.

[redwerecat]

Seeds of what? That is a terrifyingly entertaining prospect. Possibly a little too 'sci-fi' for a Pern rp, but still. Hmmm. Maybe I just like the idea of Thread finally being a legitimate threat rather than the sort of humdrum same-old it gets to be... I mean, it's dangerous, and such, but it's.... typical.

I do also love the idea that the queens are FINE, and it's just bad timing, luck, etc, compiling for a bad run of things for a while, though. That's kind of...hilarious, actually. Everyone up in arms, and the queens keep saying 'It's fine, you guys, seriously, nothing's wrong' but the revolution happens and things get serious, and THEN someone later realizes... nothing was wrong AT ALL, and the queens are all like "TOLD YOU SO. But now you fucked it up, so there. Reap what you sow, we're going off to be fabulous while you revolt and whatnot."

And all the chromatic ranks (Not Princes or Queens, basically) are like ".....FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU- you know what forget you we're revolting anyway it was a good idea."

Or...uh. Something like that. Maybe with less sarcasm and commentary, but you get the idea.

[summerrain]

/-\_/-\

I like that idea. That Thread came early, so the Queens weren't ready for it.

[Whim]

So, I was debating whether (and how long) to keep this secret, but:

There will be no queens in this hatching, as most people have probably guessed already. However, one of the females is fertile. Its up to her writer whether which dragon it is is OOC knowledge; IC, no one will know until she clutches. I haven't decided how large the clutch will be, but it'll certainly be small; probably five eggs at most.

Regardless, in two IC years there will be a clutching non-queen female. I think that could lend quite a bit of power to a chromatic revolution, particularly since while I won't have her clutch princes or queens, I think she will be able to clutch all the others.

I can (and probably will) add a few NPC posts over time about the weyrleaders trying to get a transfer queen and, assuming we go with this plot, not being able to find one (though probably getting a donated clutch instead). That can be a nice basis for the 'where are all the queens?' worry to start spreading, as the weyrleaders, and then the riders who assumed a transfer queen would be coming when one never does, realize that they are not the only weyr with so few queens.

If we really want to back this up, I can ensure that there are no queen eggs in the next few clutches either. (A queen's clutch can have anywhere from 10 to 20 eggs, and each egg had a 1% chance of being a queen, so queen eggs aren't hugely likely anyway.)

[miashin]

I had a thought as to the issue of boring threadfall... threads, entirely inspired by Whim's random number generator way of doing hatchings.

In all the Pern RPs I've been a part of, thread was always controlled and written by the players but what if we made 'thread' an NPC. Have the threadfall times/patterns/etc. be decided by a random number generator and then play through the event similar to how we've done with the hatching.

We could even have an event list, such as if the random number generator falls on a particularly rare roll there'll be a death, less rare would be injury (more sever injuries being rarer than less sever injuries). We could also have a 'fate list' of characters who's RP'ers don't mind taking a gamble on a bad roll and ending up with injured/dead characters (otherwise those rolls would affect NPCs). Other events could include running low on firestone, having to rescue holdless caught out in the open, and other such things.

This way threadfall would be more interesting and fun since the participants won't know what exactly will happen and RP won't, hopefully, get repetitive or boring.

[Whim]

I could certainly do that; if anyone wants, I can make up generation numbers and show them for people to see and debate the ratios. My one thought would be how this would be handled; would there be a threadfall thread, say, every (OOC) week? Or just when someone decides they feel like writing one, and I can generate the numbers then? Or I could generate them ahead of time, and people can use them when they choose to? And, would the events be written in using the NPC account, or just announced and then people can discuss and incorporate them into the thread through PC posts?

And, for the fate lists. I definitely like that idea, but I think maybe it could be split up; one for general injuries that can be recovered from, one for all injuries (that can heal through crippling and maiming ones), and one for injuries through death/anything. That way someone who doesn't want their character to die, but does want something unexpected to encourage plots and such, can get it.