Tortoise

Through the Rifts: Progeny

Concerning sheets and deadlines: While I know many players like to go full-in on crafting worlds, I do want to make sure that we don't stall on getting the RP actually started. As a result, I'm giving everyone until February 1st to have a finalized sheet. At that point, I will approve or reject every sheet I've received. (Rejection is possible in this RP, but don't take it too personally if I can't let you in at just this time. We've got like 20 people who have expressed some variety of interest.) The goal is to start this RP on 2/2/22 :P

Still gonna read over all the sheets I've already received in the meantime, ofc. And speaking of:

WIP Reviews

@ClocktowerEchos
I love, love, love the aesthetic feel here. Really hoping these guys get into a war one day. The clash of steel against clay, the ground afterwards splattered in blood and shards of broken terracotta. (Blood presumably being from whoever they were fighting :P)

@Nate1008
Looking forward to seeing that "Primal Magic" in action. The chaotic feel will make any fight scene featuring a Gruall mage both dangerous and chaotic.

@Dark Cloud
Not much to truly review yet, but I do like the cleverness of your hider

@InsertANameHere
This is pretty good, my dude! I like it. I can see the "personality" of the Empire (materialist, practical, somewhat authoritarian) without you needing to directly tell me. I'd like a little more on the culture section, and I'd like for the population to be a number. But other than that, this is a solid sheet.

@Mao Mao
Although clearly still WIP, I can see some good worldbuilding here. I'm already curious to learn more about these birdy folks. Also, giant tortoises exist here!!

@DX3214
Your lack of clear grammar is causing me some issues. There's little punctuation in some of your writing, and that makes me worried about your ability to keep up with the high-casual writing of this RP. If you can fix that up, I'll give the sheet a more full read as we approach the deadline.

@Timemaster
Message'd.

@Perihelion
Just giving a quick glance due to the amount I have to review today, I have to say that this is precisely the kind of sheet I like to see. Wonderful writing, detailed. Always awesome to receive this kind of app.

Also, I do urge everyone to join the Discord who hasn't already. I make a lot of announcements and so forth there, and it would be helpful as a tool to follow along. You don't really need to be super active, but just being aware of it and occasionally checking on your browser or whatever can aide you.

Through the Rifts: Progeny

Hello there. I'm new to these forums, but I'm an active RPer. This sort of RP seems to be in line with what I like in an RP, per my introduction - mainly, a focus on worldbuilding.

I do have a question. If we're looking at the 12th century as a general base, why the ban on guns in particular? They didn't invalidate things like bows or armor (steel plate armor as we know it came in at about the early 13th century, after firearms, and was tested for strength by shooting.) Their main advantage at that point was ease of use - gunners were less effective than trained bowmen, but it was much easier to teach someone how to load and point a gun than to train them on archery.

Not that I'd argue about it if you just prefer no guns. It seemed like a very specific ban to me, considering that the deadlier, armor-piercing arbalests would presumably be allowed.

@InsertANameHere

On the one hand, it's an aesthetic thing. I'll be frank with you: I want this to be Lord of the Rings, the Eragon series, D&D. Even knowing that guns and gun-like instruments have been around nearly as long as gunpowder itself, it would just mess up the feel that I'm going for.

Secondly, it's a slippery slope. Imagine that a guy who doesn't know the history very well sees that we have guns, and can't distinguish between the medieval versions and their deadlier counterparts that came centuries later. He'll either be angry because he believes that swords and bows are now obsolete in the RP, or he'll overestimate how much his gun-wielding troops can do. You must always remember that we aren't history professors here, but players of a game. Most players aren't going to start researching the history of firearms, and I would hardly want them to. So it's better if guns are just... not present.

It's bad on both accounts.

(That said, no taboo on posting your WIP before waiting on me. It's coolio, yo. I've been held up a bit lately)

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@Everyone,

I'm now preparing the OOC. As mentioned, that and reviews on your WIPs will be made later this evening. Thanks, grazie, etc.

Through the Rifts: Progeny

@Dark Cloud@Darkspleen@Mao Mao@Perihelion

Glad to have y'all. OOC will prolly be officially up in a day or two. Don't forget to join the Discord, where a lot of the actual discussion and important developments of this RP is bound to happen

discord.gg/hxQVFpHZ

Through the Rifts: Progeny

What's the name of a government that is lead by elders? Trying to recall, hrm.

@Dark Cloud

Gerontocracy?

Through the Rifts: Progeny

@Tortoise And uh how high of an advanced writer do I have to be? Because I can push out at least mid/high casual writing. I find the advanced tag somewhat daunting.

@Dark Cloud

I would have it set to both casual and advanced, but there's a limit to how many tags you can use :P

Yeah, mid/high casual will be totally fine

Through the Rifts: Progeny

@Tortoise Hmm might throw my hat in, but I want to know if we are restricted to being smooth skin humanoids? I ask because I have an idea of a race I made in an rp I never got to use. A race of short communal reptilian humanoids like kobolds but more sociable and less stabby.

@Dark Cloud

Absolutely! No limits on race at all. Imagination is the limit.

Through the Rifts: Progeny

Those who I've already discussed this with:

@Irredeemable
@Lady Lascivious
@Crusader Lord
@TimeMaster

Through the Rifts: Progeny

Through the Rifts: Progeny

Do your people remember their homeland? The Plane from which they first came? It is called Gaia, a massive and beautiful world, full of life and magic, a world of swords and spells and mystery and longed-for beauty. Or, at least, it was. Before the Cataclysm ended that pretty old song.

We are the survivors of that Cataclysm. We are Gaia's disparate children, sent haphazardly through the Rifts- magical gateways that led us from the world of Gaia to new homes. Each one went somewhere different, a different Plane of existence. Our people were spread across countless extraplanar realms, some living in worlds wreathed in flame and inhabited by demons, others finding themselves lost in great green forests. We were spread apart, disconnected from each other and our home.

Now, five hundred years later, the Rifts have reopened. And we are beginning to find one another.

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General Idea

This is a fantasy spin-off of my successful science-fiction NRP, Through the Gateways: Humanity.

Now, for me, the most interesting part about NRP has always been the interactions between different cultures. How does the warmonger react to the pacifists? What happens when a group of religious faithful meet a society of atheists?

As we have in Gateways, that's what I want to focus on in this RP. But instead of sci-fi, we're going fantasy this time around. We're going to each be playing as a roughly medieval nation, descended from the original settlers who were sent through the Rifts and into other Planes. The world we came from was the typical fantasy realm, where magic is real, and elves and dwarves probably hopped around. But when the Cataclysm happened, an apocalyptic event that caused the environment of Gaia to become uninhabitable, we were forced to open magical portals to other worlds and flee there instead. That's where your people have been living for 500 years.

Now think about what might have happened to them in this time. Did they land on a harsh plane, and used dark magic to survive? Are they ruled over by a ruthless tyrant? Have they made pacts with whatever creatures live there already? Or have they managed to stay true to some chivalrous, knight-like ideals? I want this to be heavily culture-focused, so your imagination is the limit. (As long as you don't break the medieval tech limits, don't be afraid to go somewhere that isn't typical fantasy.)

Now, for reasons unknown, the Rifts have reopened. All at once. For the first time in five centuries, our poor little countries will be sending their scouts into the Rifts and finding one another. And personally, I think it could be pretty fun to RP these early 'first contact' interactions. Seeing how our different people respond to one another. And as the RP goes on, I'm not opposed to anything; war, trade, diplomacy, or whatever else.

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How Do the Rifts Work?

Magically!

Alright, alright, more importantly, there are some rules that make this RP work. Like:

1.) All Rifts connect to all other Rifts
The Rifts magically offer anyone who enters them a choice on where they want to go, so long as their desired location also has a Rift. This means that every Plane can get to every other Plane, so that none of us are prevented from interacting with one another because we're not close enough together on a map

2.) There's no way of traveling throughout the Planes other then the Rifts

3.) Since the Cataclysm, the magic to create new Rifts has been lost.
This is to prevent anyone from spreading out into new Planes, so that the focus stays on us interacting with each other rather than trying to expand throughout the extraplanar worlds :

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Magic and Technology:

This is a Medieval Fantasy RP. I'm imagining that the world of Gaia was in the Medieval Ages when we left for the rifts, probably around the equivalent of 12th century Europe. Hoooowever, what happened on the other side of those rifts is up to you. Maybe your people had an Enlightenment as soon as they got there. Or maybe the centuries of isolation have allowed them to forget much of what was once known, slipping them back into antiquity. As a result, I'm allowing tech levels to be anywhere from the early Iron Age to the very start of the Renaissance. (Guns, however, are a banned tech.)

All that said, I'm just one man, and I can't reasonably research, debate and rule on every technology. So when you fill out your NS, you only need to give me a general idea of what they know. As long as you're not coming at me with machine guns and tanks, or with sticks and stones, it'll probably be chill.

With magic, I'm going to play it by ear.

You can go high or low, from fireballs to simple card tricks, when imagining the magic that your people use. It may be that your Plane lends itself to a particular kind of magic- perhaps you live in a place where there are new gods that empower your wizards in new ways? Or, perhaps, the whole of the Plane seems to make mysticism fizzle out and spells go awry. Maybe the only spell that works in your world is the one that summons pink frogs. Use your imagination and give us something interesting!

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On Joining and Leaving:

If someone wants to join after the game has already begun, I've decided I'll just say that the Rift leading to their plane has only now opened. Likewise, if someone leaves or goes MIA, we can say the their plane's Rift just shut down as mysteriously as it had reactivated. In this way, the NRP should be able to accept new players whenever, and survive losses without grinding to a halt. It has worked so far for Gateways; here's hoping it'll work here too.

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Interested?

Worry not, you don't need to have been in Gateways to play with us here. The NS is below!

Nation Sheet

Nation Name

_{(This is probably a good place to insert a flag or other representative image)}

Government Form:
_{(Monarchy? Caliphate? Anarcho-capitalist Republic? Whoever slays the most demons is in charge? Whoever summons the most demons is in charge? Or anything else you can think of.)}

Demographics:
_{(Both humans and non-humans welcomed. Be snooty elves and grumpy dwarves if you want. Or throw out that tattered copy of Lord of the Rings you've got lying around and make up something more original.)}

Population:
<sub>(I'll admit, population size was hard to come up with in this. There's so many factors! I've decided to go fairly broad, on a rough scale of:

1 Million or Less: Small
2-5 Million: Normal
6-12 Million: Large
13 Million or More: Massive

In cases where your population size is very important to your nation, I am willing to discuss making an exception.)</sub>

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Plane Description: _{(When your people escaped through the Rift, where did they end up? Is it a flaming inferno inhabited by demons? Is it an earth-like jungle, or a mountainous island chain? What's this place like, and does anything else live there? Let your imagination run wild here)}

History: _{(What happened after you landed on your new plane of existence? This can be as brief or detailed as you like.)}

Culture and Society: <sub>(How do they live? Anything from ritual cannibals, to matriarchal atheists, to a German-Chinese fusion culture. Religion also goes here!

This is my favorite section ^-^)</sub>

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Governance and Politics: _{(Like the government form field, but more room for detail. Tell me if your monarchy is slowly being subsumed by the merchant classes. Or, if your people are organized in such a way that they don't even have a government or politics anymore, then this is also a good place to talk about that.)}

Technology and Magic:
_{(Before you start, please read the Technology and Magic section up above. Done? Aight, go ahead and let your imagination run wild)}

Military Overview: _{(This is the space to talk about any offensive/defensive capabilities you have. Now, keep in mind that our people have all been essentially isolated for 500 years. If you have a huge army, I want to know who it is that you've been fighting all this time to justify having a military that tough. If the answer is "Nobody" then, mis amigo, you shouldn't have the huge army.)}

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Additional Info: _{(Anything else you want to include that there isn't a spot for up there. Little factoids about your nation are both amusing and welcome.)}

Also, here's the Discord link!: discord.gg/hxQVFpHZ

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Rules

1.) No godmodding, or controlling other player's characters/nations
A basic rule in any RP. You know it, you love it.

2.) Cannot fully conquer other player's nations without permission.
You can go to war with another player. But you will need the a-okay from them before I allow you to completely exterminate/assimilate/remove another nation from the game.

3.) If conflicts cannot be decided, the GM will arbitrate.
This goes for IC and OOC conflicts. I always prefer for people to work things out mutually. Ideally, everyone can agree about who wins/loses wars, or who has the upper hand in trade, or so on. But if you can't, I'll step in to try playing judge fairly.

4.) When using concept art for your NS/posts, avoid anime pictures.
I'll allow some! But I don't want the RP to feel too anime, so try to keep it light. (This one is less of a rule and more of a guideline.)

5.) No way to stop others from entering the Rift into your plane
You can set up defenses around it, of course. But you can't actually prevent someone from entering their Rift and heading through to yours. You'll just have to stab them when they get there. (This is so that wars and other fun interactions don't just grind to a halt with a player saying "I'm closing my Rift!")

Through the Gateways: Humanity [Closed] [Soon to be Concluded]

_{(Addressing: @Irredeemable, @Lady Lascivious, Mentions Others)}

_{[Starring: Omar]}

It needs to be a show. Omar knows that, even as he doesn't like it. He wants to be honest by nature: he wants to step up there and simply say what he has to say. But Bezia is New Hollywood- he hates that Oligarch name- and New Hollywood demands a performance. The director told him: stand just so, wear just this, let this song play and this atmosphere build and give this impression, to make a good impression on the Meeting Place. Don't frown. Use that broad smile. Wear your glasses, don't listen to the feedback chatter. Be a performer.

He feels like a marionette.

Omar has his glasses on, an earwig in his head. Not the biological kind: a metal earwig, a descendent of the headphone, sits buried in his right ear. His curly black hair hides it, that devilish little device, while a cosmetologist-costumer frets and frets over him. She wants to make sure his outfit is just right. Absolutely perfect. She's given him a long, light brown robe, hoodless, loose around the limbs. (He supposes this is her attempt at making him look "religious.") But, funnily, the robe has a little patch in the shape of Earth- sewn right where the heart is. Probably meant to say Look, we still respect Earth too!

"Oh, honey, don't be such a sad guy," the cosmetologist reads his face, and speaks in a near-perfect recreation of a late 20th century Bronx accent. "It's gonna be alright! This gonna be your first time on stage? Just focus on all those words that they made you rehears, you know, and-"

"It's not at all my first time on stage," Omar tries to interrupt, "but it is my first time getting makeu-"

"-if you have to, imagine the audience naked!" His costumer pauses, placing a makeup brush against her chin in a thoughtful way. "Or was it in their underwear? Eh, I can never remember, just do one or the other and you'll be fine, sweetie, absolutely fine, now let's get your little outfit finished- Ah! You're gonna look amaaaazing!"

Will he? Good to know. Omar tries to take it all in stride. He remembers the Ruinist philosophy on situations like this well: recently, he's contributed to some of it. One cannot fully control one's circumstances, they teach, so one must instead readjust one's interior life to accept them. He knows this. Life and Truth will not bow to you; it is your duty to bow to them, drinking the cup that is placed before you. Whatever the situation, one must brace oneself and weather it. This is where peace lies-

"Here you go, honey," Omar's costumer interrupts his attempt at philosophy. She's busy tying golden fabric from his shoulder to his hip, making for a lacy, glittering sash. Huh, he realizes. It's actually unique. A costume worn by a man of New Hollywood- scratch that, Bezia- which isn't an imitation of an Old Earth outfit. Clothes with no connection to the past, made for this particular occasion, by designers working today. It would be a sin under the ECU. That thought does give Omar's heart some hope. Not all that is new has been lost to the old show.

"Get outta there, it's time to go on stage," a man's voice speaks softly and directly into his right ear, and Omar finds himself perfectly in agreement with it, "we've got 120 seconds 'till camera roll." The cosmetologist-costumer makes a face of surprise when big Omar turns, fast, and escapes out of her clutches. She is left with a comb hanging limply in her hands, frozen mid-brush. He realizes she can't hear the director. Now, he thinks, the pomp has gotten all the way into my head.

"Oh, uh, uh- good luck with your debut!," she calls behind him, from her habit of talking to all those fresh young actors, but it makes him cringe inside. This is not a debut. He is a serious Liaison. Truth, I need you to walk onto this with me, and walk off it with me. From a dark, cramped backstage room, he approaches the stage proper.

And by Truth, is it a stage. A newly built section of the Meeting Place, attached at the hip to the White Flower segment, provides a theater-like environment dipped in gold and soaked in the atmosphere of an early 20th century construction. If you were to yell in here, your yell would rise up to balconies, pass bronze railings, climb wood-panel steps and echo right back to you off a far-distant wall. ('We can't let the Zetans or those Ishtari show us up,' someone recently claimed.)

Not that you would ever need to yell. Clever acoustics promise that if you were to whisper from the stage, they could hear you in the thirty-fifth row, and talk back to you from the second balcony. Seating for two thousand. A stage that is, tonight, set for one: Omar.

He steels himself. Any recurring butterflies in his stomach have been firmly squashed. After his success with the Ishtari, maybe he shouldn't be worried?

No, he knows he is capable. Liaison Affan is nothing if not a people person. He can't see them from here, still being behind the stage's curtain, but representatives of several nations are present, each invited by the Flowers for this occasion. All together, they fill up not even a tenth of the available space. The room must be comically empty. But the Flowers know that any second now, holograms will appear to fill up one-thousand-five-hundred seats: all of which were given to a random citizen by lottery. Scattered all over Bezia, those 1500 citizens are sitting in holo-suites, waiting for the show to begin. When it does, their holo-suites shall immediately take the form of the Meeting Place's Flower Theater, and they shall immediately appear as holograms in the real one. They'll watch virtually. Empty seats are ugly.

"Five, four, three..." the director counts down in Omar's ear. He steps out from the back and onto the main floor of the stage, as velvet curtains slowly pull away, "...two, one. Go time. You've got this, Affan."

The currents are drawn. The holograms of Flower citizens have already appeared, shamelessly swiveling and gawking around this huge room. But in the front seats: there sits the nations. So calm and diplomatic. Omar recognizes the patricians, and wonders if any of them recognize him. He spots their Alfonso. A member of the One lurks somewhere further to the back. And, many seats away from either, Omar spots the Isthari- seeing them does make him smile.

Let's go.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Omar speaks like a showman, inspired by his surroundings, "my name is Omar Affan, Liaison of the White Flower Democracy. I would like to thank you all- my countrymen and visitors both- for coming tonight, whether by hologram or in person. I do have announcements to make. But first... I have a story for you."

A chime strikes at his last words. He is no longer the only person on the stage. Ghostly apparitions of holograms slide into being around him, not at all like the ones occupying seats, abstractions representing figures out of Bezia's past. They're human shaped, without detail: silhouettes in color. They are entirely green, or entirely golden, or entirely blue. They're not-quite-perfect in shape, like a splash of watercolor paint.

"In the beginning, there was a tyrant."

Those shadowy beings of color start to move, a watercolor blur trailing each movement. A single, black figure appears, shorter than the rest, whispering in their ears. Every character he speaks to turns a shade darker, until flowingly, in graceful movements, he leaps away from them like a dancer and slides to another. The darkened shades follow him across the stage.

"This was the first Savant..."

As Omar recites his story, the holo-actors flow with him, enacting each scene like a painting. (Later, it will be found that a recording of the event can be paused on any frame, and will lose none of its splendor.) He moves poetically and slowly through history of the ECU, sparring nothing: he talks about the London Assassinations, the Savant's Seventh Principle, the violent suppression of the '38 Beijing Riots, the horror of it all. Many scenes would make their guests grateful that holograms cannot suffer. And that these holograms do not have faces.

He glances pointedly at the Matuvistans more than once, as if to say 'These tyrants were your allies'- without actually saying it.

Eventually, he comes to modern times.

"The protectors," Omar's voice fills the hushed room, "were a lie. They never protected. They were first founded after an Oligarch's violent death. Vengefully, they carried that same violence into everything they did..."

A figure in gold crushes his mace into a figure in white, sending red watercolor blood to float slowly through the air. A drop passes by Omar's face. When he speaks, it seems to blow away at the breath of his word:

"Until."

As he says that magic phrase, the scene behind him shifts dramatically. New figures appear out of thin air, filling the stage, cramming it to absolute bursting with scenes of New Hollywood history. Directly behind and around Omar is a scene of the Revolution, white specters wrestling against golden protectors and red shapes that might be Matuvistans. To the left of him lie the Beijing Riots, to the right the murder of Dr. Yung, to the far left a work camp, and to the far right the rise of the first Savant.

"Until," Omar says again. By microphone and acoustic tricks, the word echoes through the entire theater. The shades hear him.

From behind, the Flowers move out of their scene of Revolution, invading all the others. They jump in front of Dr. Yung just before the bullets crash into her. They free the prisoners of the work camp and aid the Beijing rioters. They drag the first Savant off the stage and into the darkness behind it. It is as if they are pouring backwards into history, dismantling all the tyranny, righting all the wrongs. It is a message: we're not only taking power; we're setting the past right again.

Omar goes on for a moment, painting more scenes of battle, victory, violent-glorious revolution. He, wisely, never mentions those foreigners they fought against by name- but the implication is there. The play ends with a lone silhouette, white and shredded with ghostly cuts taken in battle, standing alone. A crown shaped like a flower is on its head.

Whatever the foreign diplomats feel about it, that audience of Flowers bursts into holographic claps that drown out the room.

~~~~~~~~

As promised, Omar does make some actual announcements.

Eventually, the clapping dies down, and the room slowly returns to sobriety. "Ahem," Omar says. Those few Flowers still celebrating calm themselves to listen.

"Now, I did gather everyone here for some reasons other than a history lesson-" pause for laughter, take a breath, resume- "and in fact, there is some important business to get to." The true delegates and ambassadors in the room prepare themselves.

"In the last six months, the White Flower Democracy has been in formation. Our planet, as many of you know, was in an intense cycle of recovery and repair following recent events. You know the events I'm talking about. We regret that, during that time, we have not always been able to be as active on the intergalactic stage as we would have preferred. But I'm here to reassure you all: that ends tonight. We are reaching out formally, to all nations, to establish true diplomatic and trade relations. This offer does extend to those who may have been former enemies. We are not unforgiving: the WFD understands that the nature of international diplomacy sometimes causes a nation to take one side or the other. We've decided we won't take it personally." In other words, the door is not totally closed to the Khanate and the Matuvistans.

"There," Omar smiles, "that's the boring part out of the way. The more interesting bit is this..." In his soul, the Liaison must admit, he relishes this moment.

"Months ago, during the Revolution, many of your nations received some rather cryptic messages from the terminal of then-Liaison Abadi. A few sentences, reading something like:

'Some say you're for us, some aren't so sure.

Come out the shadows. Fight openly for what your heart knows is right.

And one day,

We'll pay you back,
A Flower That Grows Where Nations Meet.'

You will have realized that they were not from her. No, in fact, they were sent from a Flower who was embedded in the Meeting Place at the time. He had been there since it's opening, since even before the Revolution. Those messages he sent at last were... to poke the bear, so to speak, and see if it lashes out at you. To remind all of you in the intergalactic community 'We are here. We are not only rebels on New Hollywood. We are present with you right now.'

It was me. I am the Flower That Grows Wear Nations Meet, and I am pleased- no, proud- to have been the first citizen to question the Undefeated, to thank the Columbians, to criticize the Khan, and to apologize to the people that were then known as the Zetans and now as the Enlightened."

Pause for reaction.

"If any of you have qualms with what feelings I may have expressed, you may take them up with me. Personally. The White Flower Democracy did not exist at that time that I sent those messages, so naturally, I acted alone. But do not misunderstand: I stand by what I said.

Thank you all for your time."

As Omar turned to walk off the stage- now free of holographic actors and specters- the smooth and low voice of the Director spoke into his ear "Making yourself a martyr, Omar?" Indeed he was, but that word reminded him of something.

"Oh," he said, turning for a moment back towards the audience, and thankful his voice was still echoing properly through the room, "as a final note, I am pleased to announce that Bezia is officially opening her borders to visitors. Please, come see our land. Unlike the ECU, we are not afraid of foreigners, or their ideas. Previous restrictions against religion have been fully lifted. You are all welcome here."

For a moment, as he turns away, Omar accidentally makes eye contact with a Matuvistan priest who came along with his nation's delegation. A tall, imperial man in a black robe with a white collar at the neck. He nods grimly to the Liaison.

Then I suppose we'll see you soon.

The Flower audience flickers out of being.

~~~~~~~~

_{(Addressing: @jorvhik)}

Message to the Kingdom of Kudrion

Greetings from the White Flower Democracy to the people of the Kingdom of Kudrion! I am Liaison Omar, representative of my people here on the Meeting Place, and would be pleased to make your acquittance sometime. We have heard interesting things about your use of energy-projection. We ourselves specialize in another form of the same art- you may have heard of Hollywoodite Holograms- and an exchange of ideas could be promising for both our nations.

Let me know,
Liaison Omar Affan.

Through the Gateways: Humanity [Closed] [Soon to be Concluded]

Collab between Tortoise and @Dog

Their signs look like the typical marks of a protest: pickets with bold letters on them, reading things like “GREED DOESN’T PAY,” and “THIS IS OUR LAND,” and “FOREIGNERS GO HOME.” At least three dozen men and women carry those messages, even when some would condemn them for doing so: after all, the Ustonian megacorps had kept their end of the bargain. They pay local tax. They hire local workers.

But this is Bezia- or New Hollywood, or whatever it is called these days. Conflict still abounds. The xenophobic elements, in lieu of true aliens or mutants or cyborgs to rail against, have chosen these foreign companies for now. The Zetans aren’t here. The Columbians all went home. So these Ustonian corps are to be the targets, guilty or no. Angry men march on a newly-built headquarters in bright midday, feeling perfectly justified in their anger.

And, worst, there is something else in the midst. These Flower protestors- some of them, anyway- are also veterans of the revolution. At their hips are weapons. Guns, mostly, with a few axes thrown in for flavor. At least one is the very same axe that split the skull of a Matuvistan in Neo London- because that is, indeed, where this unfortunate company has chosen to take up residence.

You know, there is a fine line between a protest and a riot.

They approach the building. Official Flower security will eventually intercept them, but not before they get to the Ustonians.

“THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING. PLEASE DISPERSE THE AREA. THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING,” yells a loudspeaker from an officer on top of an armored car. A small block of riot-officer stood guard, blocking the various pieces of junk thrown at them. This was not much of a riot or protest, to them anyway. If anything, this was simply a small angry mob. With the crowd still determined to stay, the security-officers launch a series of tear-gas and flashbangs into the mob before quickly rushing in to beat down the protesters and then arrest.

But these protestors had faced this kind of thing before. When the first tear-gas canisters arced over their heads, trailing gray smoke across the sky, they knew to pull up scarves around their faces and wrap tight goggles around their eyes. The overall look was kind of ridiculous; but it did keep them safe from the gas. Mostly, anyway. Little tendrils seeped into the eyes-it burned like cut onions.The protestors had to fight through it.

One man shouted through: “These strangers think this is the first time we’ve dealt with this? They’ve never met protectors!” He was answered with jeers and laughter. And with quick-drawn guns.

“I’ll say it again,” the same man shouted, but now he cocked back a shotgun and aimed for a Ustonian: “Get off of our planet!”

He fired, and the first shot echoed through the thick tear-gas mist. The body dropped.
A brutal melee occurs as security-officers, dorning full-protection gear, clash with the mob. Faces are bruised, kneecaps broken, batons broken, rubber-bullets and beanbags shot, and plenty of other things ongoing. A few bodies are taken out of the melee in hand-cuffs and then quickly moved into the backs of vans while others are moved to medical vehicles. An assortment of screams, yells, and thumps are heard as the fight goes on.

The Flower protestors are outnumbered- they think. Through the haze of gas and the fog of a fight, nobody is sure who’s still standing, or who’s where, or who’s who. People throw a punch half as often as they crash into each other like bumper carts. Two competing forces, fear and anger, are as much at war here as the people.

Jims, a teenage Neo London native, loses out to the former. He starts to run. He carries his dad’s pistol with him. He sprints through the crowd, trips over a metal-concrete curb he couldn’t see, and has a bleeding forehead when he is able to open his eyes again. How much time has passed? He still hears the fight around him- only a few seconds, maybe. The gun is still in his hands. He nearly screams when the masked face of a Ustonian security officer lurks out of the tear-gas and appears to see him. So much like the protectors. So much. He knows what they would have done to him, and in that panic, his little pistol feels like the one power he has. The Ustonian tries grabbing at his arms, snatching and gripping and struggling, wanting to put cuffs on him- they nearly mount each other- they roll and wrestle against each other on the hard ground, and Jims somehow, barely, forces his gun up to the Ustonian’s head. The fight stops for a moment.

“Get back, man, I’ll shoot! You- you fucking protector! I swear I’ll really kill you, this bullet isn’t rubber!”

A small chuckle is heard from the Ustonian officer. “Try it, kid,” says the security officer - knowing full well that the pistol cannot do much against his kind of armor.

Jims tries it. A little ‘ting!’ signifies the bullet ricocheting off the officer’s helmet. “Shit!” says Jims, ineffectively.

“Tough luck, kid,” says the officer with a heavy vo-coded voice. With a raised baton, the officer smashes in poor Jim’s face. Hit after hit, Jim’s face starts to get extremely bruised. Before long, Jim loses consciousness and his body is moved towards the medical van.