Subject: Quick clarificatory note!
Author:
Posted on: 2014-12-11 03:45:00 UTC
The bits about redundancy aren't levied against anyone, they're a wry comment on my own rotten luck and slow pace. I wanted to note this because it seemed to me it could easily be read as a passive aggressive comment when that is not the intention.
For quite a long time, there has been an infrequent but plaintive cry that all the good parts of PPC history are taken - that I've gone through and systematically written everything worth writing, and left only the dregs for the rest of you. I've always argued against this, pointing out that the 'good parts' only exist because of my stories, and that anyone else is free to add their own 'good parts'. But it's never really happened.
So here's your chance to change that.
So You Think You Know PPC History?
Spoilery discussion to follow; Legolas, give me some space!
("... a diversion!")
So You Think...? was written to answer a couple of not-so-burning questions:
-How did the PPC go from slow enough recruitment that the first three agents worked together for a significant amount of time before there were six agents total, to masses of agents during the Insanity Epidemic, in the space of maybe 5 years?
-What exactly did the Marquis de Sod mean when he told Agent Techno-Dann that Management decided long ago to replace all the human directors with flowers. We're much more dependable?
The story as outlined in So You Think...? goes like this: there was another 'PPC', already in existence when the Flowers first set foot in the Word Worlds. Sometime around 1987-88, they contacted the SO and proposed a merger.
I said there was a vote, and I meant it. It's this: Should So You Think...? become part of the PPC canon?
I'm asking for two reasons. First, it's a fairly significant shake-up of the PPC history you (think you) know. Everything I've previously written still stands - it's just that there's a whole other side of things you never saw.
Secondly... I will never write another word in this second PPC. How closely do they match the Flowers' version? Why did the Flowers end up recreating their organisation? Where did they come from? Precisely how large are they? Why does no-one ever talk about them? Why are the First Twenty agents (Elisabeth, Anya, Osbert, Doctor Cornelius and Mortic Wentway are the five we know the names of) famous, when the other PPC was much larger at the same time? All these questions, and all the others, are yours to answer. I'll make use of things other people write, but I won't create anything on this side of the PPC. Ever.
So the collory to the voting question is: are you up for the challenge? There's a whole new history out there for you to explore. You could write a new History, throw out vignettes, or simply integrate it into your agents' backstory. The worlds are your molluscs.
hS
PS: Some minor notes on things that may or may not be canonised:
-If we need terms for the two PPCs prior to their merger, I suggest PPC (Origin) and PPC (Earth). Unless someone decides that the larger PPC isn't from Earth, in which case, wherever they're from. You could also have PPC (Flowers) and PPC (Humans). Whether these are in-universe terms, or just Wiki names, is up to you lot.
-I deliberately left the woman in the story unnamed, but my personal head-canon is that she's Jay Thorntree. ^^ That may well mess up her age, though - I'm not sure if it was ever stated - unless she was caught in half of the Lancre Timeslip or something? Tell you what - if someone wants to canonise the idea that she was a PPC (Earth) agent before the merger, I'll write the story of how she skipped over most of the '90s. Unless you want to write it!
-My current thought is that Agent Selene was a PPC (Earth) agent. I won't mention that, though, until someone makes it clear whether or not the former PPC(E) agents actually remember that fact.
-Did this all come across as a bit confrontational? Because it's not meant to. Truth be told, I'm really excited to see what you can all come up with, given a wide-open setting like this. ^^ ~hS
Part of me likes the idea. It explains that line from Makes-Things, which previously didn't fit with the currently canon history. It also adds some back-up to the never-quite-spoken-aloud idea that There's Something About World One that makes it a particularly time-rupturey and delicate version of Earth, closely linked to the rest of the worlds.*
But on the other hand . . . I guess it just feels a little too forced? Above you asked, "How did the PPC go from slow enough recruitment that the first three agents worked together for a significant amount of time before there were six agents total, to masses of agents during the Insanity Epidemic, in the space of maybe 5 years?" Let's go by Occam's Razor, based on what we already know. The first two weren't recruited; they fell through by accident, due to Makes-Things. We know Osbert was the third; maybe Osbert was the first to fall through a natural plothole (EKYL PLESE GIVE OSBERT A BACKSTORY), and at least some of the other seventeen probably came the same way. We already know the SO wanted to move away from "blow up the planet" to "deal with just the bad parts." Seeing how effective the World One recruits were, and perhaps starting to get an inkling of World One's status as a story nexus of some sort, perhaps the Flowers started their campaign of recruitment posters and the like then. Such posters are mostly mentioned in older spin-offs, indicating that that recruitment strategy was used more heavily in the early days of the (real world actively written) PPC, but have tapered off more recently. This could be an indicator that the upsurge of staff you mentioned between the early days and the Somebody's arrival was due to this stronger recruitment campaign. (Radio Kunek's history seems to be a poetic telling of events similar to what I've just described. At least, that's my interpretation.)
As for the line from Makes-Things: Maybe with all the humanoid recruits the PPC started to get, they put another level of supervisor under the Flowers to deal directly with the other (mostly) human(oid) agents. But perhaps that didn't work out well, or perhaps they simply preferred having the non-Flower supervisors in the field, or perhaps said supervisors were spending to much time in the field to do their jobs effectively? Any of which could have led to the Flowers reinstated the original department heads as the direct overseers to the agents. Doctor Fitzgerald's continued role as department head may simply be due to his better understanding of humanoid biology than any of the Flowers could manage, making it more efficient to keep him on as head of Medical. (Plus, our version is a hologram, right? I've never been quite clear on that.) If this happened not long before Jay and Acacia's posted mission reports (or even during the first four!), it might still have been on Makes-Things's mind when he introduced Agent Dann to the Marquis.
So, yeah. I guess, in general, I prefer using what's already established as a base for writing around, rather than adding big changes like this into the PPC's backstory. And I feel like we do have enough holes to fill, as is. Putting aside Ekyl's personal investment in Osbert, there are at least two or three long histories that could be made out of everything I've just discussed. I vote against this change.
Also, completely off-topic, but this is a photo from New Caledonia:
*I'm fighting it, because I know I shouldn't think it, but I'm getting more and more convinced that the PPC's "World One" is Stephen King's "Keystone Earth" from the final Dark Tower. They both have exits and entrances to other worlds, they both have a strong theme for the power of stories, and while Keystone Earth is the Earth closest to the Dark Tower, which is the center of all worlds, World One seems to be closest to PPC HQ (based on the disproportionate amount of recruitment from there), a location situated between other worlds. There's also the whole "coincidence is dead" thing, which ties nicely into two separate PPCs. I'm sure someone will publish a Dark Tower mission that contradicts this someday, but for now . . .
I actually am working on various historical tidbits and other projects, some missions, some interludes, some big picture things, though there tends to be an annoyingly recurrant theme of me getting steam going just as something is published that renders my thing redundant.
That said, really, I agree with you that this whole thing just seems kind of forced. Let the Marquis de Sod have just outright lied or something. And yes, there's enough holes to fill without just arbitrarily taking this hornet's nest that is the mire of PPC history, continuity and story potential, and smacking it with a warhammer.
The bits about redundancy aren't levied against anyone, they're a wry comment on my own rotten luck and slow pace. I wanted to note this because it seemed to me it could easily be read as a passive aggressive comment when that is not the intention.
The Wiki says that Makes-Things figured out how to create portals out of plotholes, so why did the other Sunflower Official sound confused? Wouldn't other!Makes-Things have come up with a similar idea already?
I'd be OK with making it canon, though. I'll do my best to fill in the gaps!
While the existence of two PPCs seems overly coincidental, the idea of two similar badfic-fighting organizations springing up independently isn't (we've seen plenty of that), and the two joining forces makes perfect sense. I kinda like the idea that they hooked up the Flowers' HQ to the office building—that would explain why some parts look more office-y and some parts are more alien. So, why not?
I guess I'm not that shaken up, seeing as you're not actually changing anything, just adding to it. Plus, I'm not personally interested in delving into the fictional past, and the earliest history of the PPC doesn't really affect what I'm doing with my stories in the present, so I'm not really fussed about it. (And Reorg was exciting because there was a plot with stakes in it. This, while potentially opening doors to anyone who thought they were closed before for some reason, doesn't have any inherent drama to it.)
I don't think the woman in the story could be Jay, though. Timelines aside, Jay was just an agent, and a bit of a flake at that. I can't see her in a serious bureaucratic/ambassadorial role. It just doesn't sound like her to me.
~Neshomeh
In TOS, Makes-Things was basically just a crazy inventor with a lab. There wasn't a Department of Sufficiently Advanced Technology until Techno-Dann came along and invented it, AFAIK. So, how does that resolve in-universe? I guess I assume the department existed even back in J & A's time despite them not mentioning it as such, because I have trouble believing just one guy serviced all the technology for all the agents. If the timelines fit, I could see the merger taking Makes-Things from just a guy with a lab in the Flowers' Organization to a guy with a whole department under him with the addition of personnel from the humans' PPC... but alas, the timelines don't fit. {= /
~Neshomeh, dead-ending.
I am actually working on an alternative to Origins, which won't be nearly as intricate or lengthy, but should still be fun. It is based on that line from the Marquis about human directors and also on the fact that Flowers are untrustworthy sources of information.
So, yeah, I agree that there is more to be written about how the PPC started. Our goals are, in fact, the same: to get people to see the possibilities that are out there. I just don't think all of those possibilities need to be in the same timeline/universe. :P
-Phobos, who should move that story up the list a little
I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about 'I dislike your story to the extent that I'm going to retcon it out of existence', but, y'know, whatever.
I didn't mean for it to come off that way, and I apologize that it did. I have nothing but respect for the work you've done, and this story will in no way "retcon it out of existence". I don't have the power or the wish to do any such thing.
So, again, I am sorry that I've offended you. It was never my intention.
-Phobos
All way before my (and my agents') time, so I don't really care. Either way is fine with me.
Sorry, hS, but I guess since the new(er) kids aren't affected, we don't feel like it's our call to make. Or at least, that's how I feel.
There's practically no-one whose agents date back to 1990; mine certainly don't! (Or rather, a couple of them might - but this isn't about them). But people liked The Reorganisation even though their agents weren't around then, and people liked Origins even though there were no agents around then...
It's not about the agents. It's about the organisation. Reorg wasn't exciting (? I hope so!) because your agents were threatened by it - it was exciting because the PPC was threatened by it.
But maybe that's just me, or maybe 'the PPC without the Flowers or Makes-Things' doesn't fit into that same head-space that would make this interesting. And that's fine.
hS
It seems to be sticking hard canon somewhere better left to headcanon, and the Flowers are such a big part of the PPC that a Flower-bereft PPC just seems like yet another Sue-hunter organization. The PPC might (I think) be the biggest one, but having there be another PPC that had been human-run seems best left to AU.
(Of course, if there was once a World One and a World Two, then a *merge* might be an interesting concept... but that's neither here nor there.)
(And I'm just a random newbie, so feel free to disregard this if I'm getting the general tone of the PPC canon wrong. :P )
It's just that, well, I simply have no particolar reason to be against any kind fill-in story about what happened back there as long as it is interesting.
Yours is (and I liked it), so it's good. But... well... any other equally interesting different story about how humans entered the PPC would be fine to me.
I don't know if you get what I mean? I can't exactly find the right words to express it.