(Can't add to the roleplay, but I can contribute to the discussion of World One agent backstory!)

This is totally arbitrary, but do Vulcan character replacements have green glitter in their blood? by Discofurby on 2021-03-17 01:06:27 UTC Reply

Well... by Zingenmir on 2021-03-19 07:14:36 UTC Reply

It was never posted, which is probably for the best given we realized it needed a somewhat serious rewrite not too long after finishing it (lots of fun, but there was accidentally characterization that showed the exact opposite of what was intended for one of the agents in particular and possibly for a second as well; I don't quite remember anymore), but Lily Winterwood and I once wrote a mission that included exactly that! There was a Spock replacement, and a whole lot of...well, it was a Bad Parody mission, so a bunch of the literal interpretations were really quite something.

Anyway, the point: I did a search for "glitter" in that doc, and came up with "[...] Stupock seemed to be bleeding green glitter" and two instances of "glittering green blood" after that. So, well, there you have it. It's unposted, and I don't know if Lily (or anyone else) ever specified the detail in something that is posted, but at minimum you have two PPC authors who intended to roll with the idea that a Vulcan replacement (well, actually, a Vulcan Stu; if the replacement wasn't particularly S(t)u(e)ish I'd expect their blood not to glitter or to glitter only very slightly) would in fact have glittery blood.

~Z
If you can get a sample, DAS-SWEAR would be very interested. by Huinesoron on 2021-03-17 08:37:40 UTC Reply

Though they might wind up fighting with DAS-DIG over it. We know that glitter is a mica-like mineral, and coming from a Vulcan it would have to be copper-based (also accounting for the green colour) - but there are no known copper-based phyllosilicates! In fact there is only one copper-based silicate mineral, period: papagoite, which is blue.

Agent Huinesoron tells me that not only would a new mineral be "tremendously exciting", but if they could work with the chemists to figure out the conditions needed to form it, they may be able to finally trace the original Suvian homeworld. "And then," he says, with a light in his eyes, "we can finally deal with their scourge once and for all."

I worry about that boy sometimes...

hS

*blinkblink* by Agent Dawn McKenna on 2021-03-19 07:51:29 UTC Reply

Well, that's not worrisome. And completely realistic as a goal. Uh. Maybe I'll just...

Right! Yes! ~~Backing away seems to have been successful for now!~~ We didn't exactly science the thing, and wow, this was so long ago, it's, what, 2021 now? ...how is it 2021 now? Anyway, I'm pretty sure we got that sample back in 2014 or 2015. Probably 2014, actually. So that's seven years ago.

...setting that aside, too: like I said, we didn't really science the thing, but I'm pretty sure we did deliver a sample to someone. Maybe. Probably. Look it up, it's sure to be floating around somewhere in some department. Possibly literally! Unless it's been destroyed by now, or something. I wouldn't know. I never joined either of those departments.

Also, hey, wait, back to the Elf--we have chemists? What chemists? Where? Can I meet them? What do they do? (Apart from trying to trace things, apparently.) Chemists?

HQ, man. Live here for, what is it now--fourteen years? That can't be accurate; my mental math must be off--and you can still learn something new every day if you look hard enough or stumble over the right stone at the right time. Incredible.

-Dawn

--

I didn't go check her page for the exact date, but I think she might really be at fourteen years or so now?? Counting from 2007, since I remember the date being late 2006 and also (headcanon at this point) picture her probably having to go back and finish the school year before she joins properly in 2007, so it's likely (hypothetically, at this stage, but eh) 2007 is more accurate anyway. Unless I'm mistaken and should be thinking of 2008? I'm going to check.

Okay, yeah, her recruitment date is December 2006, and I should probably move the 2007 timeline listings to later in the year, to fit with the potentially-not-just-headcanon backstory details of her first stint in the DMS happening over winter break and the requested transfer being granted after she finishes the school year and joins properly. (And then something, something, she probably has to do homeschooling as a condition of being allowed to do all this?? I'm pretty sure her absence is explained to the people in her hometown as "international boarding school she got too excited about attending to say no to", but even without that I can't imagine her parents just going, oh, sure, your formal education can end here unless you decide you want to pick it up again. It's already stretching disbelief a bit that she gets to go be an agent to begin with, but that's the kind of classic suspension of disbelief we end up using for half the World One agents, isn't it? Quite honestly, it's taken me since early 2013 to slowly work out a version of this piece of her backstory that makes even this much sense, and I'm still not completely sure whether her parents knew from the start what the PPC was or if they actually thought it was a school for a bit (ETA: I think I prefer the former, for honesty and good family communication and also possibly better understanding of why this is so exciting and why she's so firmly set on joining). Maybe they knew, but agreed in part because Dawn was so set on it and in part because it was pitched to them in a way that emphasized that she'd learn a lot about writing? I don't know. Still murky. I absolutely would not let my teenage daughter go do this, but to be fair, people that age do go to boarding schools sometimes, and possibly apprenticeships and so on, so I suppose it's not out of the reason of possibility? Especially when you factor in portals, which could be really great--there's that assurance that a visit, whether pre-planned or emergency, will cost nothing and take seconds to arrive for. So...still a bit murky, but with the bit of suspended disbelief, I think it kind of works for now? It's definitely the most sense I've been able to make of it so far.)

And that's more than enough rambling about trying to make World One agent backstory make sense, especially when you've followed the earlier trend of having agents join as young teenagers and then tried to apply some kind of real world-ish logic to it. Much simpler to have someone just fall through a plothole or get recruited from a badfic, isn't it?

~Z, who did, in fact, intend this post script to be a whole lot shorter. Whoops.

Oh! Ah, yes, sorry. by Agent Huinesoron, DOGA/DAS-DIG/SIELU on 2021-03-19 23:08:29 UTC Reply

I forget sometimes how small and new we are... you would probably have given your sample to the Department of Mary Sue Experiments and Research, but a few years back they merged with the Division of Applied-and-theoretical Multiversal Physics to form DAS - the Department of Analytical Science. We have chemists - four of them, if you count the Materials scientists. I don't really understand what they get up to myself; rocks and artefacts are my limit.

I will be sure to check with Dr. Niamh and Agent Penny to see if either of them can locate your sample; if not, it may have been passed to the Medical Research Division. I'm very interested to see what we can learn from it.

-Agent hS

'Much easier to have them fall through a plothole' indeed... I know some early agents had a whole 'time doesn't pass back home' thing going on, but it's always seemed kind of unwieldy... with Agent Kaitlyn, I think I pulled the "Tell mom it's a school" trick, whereas Constance's dad knew full well what he was sending her into. I think they miiight be the only young World One teens on my books? In general, my teen-recruit agents either come from highly dysfunctional families (Steve, Dassie), have absolutely nothing to tie them to their home (Nyx), or simply can't get back (Blue, Tango, Imbolc, Narto). But mostly the first two - where being in HQ is unequivocally better for them.

hS

(Can't add to the roleplay, but I can contribute to the discussion of World One agent backstory!) by Neo Skater on 2021-03-20 19:25:23 UTC Reply

Tanner's is actually incorporated into his character arc – ur wbvarq gur CCP gb uryc uvf snzvyl znxr raqf zrrg, ohg ur bayl gbyq uvf cneragf gung vg jnf na "vzcbegnag wbo sbe vagreangvbany frphevgl," naq yngre ba, uvf njxjneqarff nobhg pbasebagvat gurz nsgre... pregnva guvatf ur qvq naq gur nohaqnapr bs rkphfrf gunaxf gb genqvgvbany CCP birejbexvat yrq uvz gb whfg... abg pnyy be ivfvg gurz. Ur unfa'g frra gurz sbe gjb lrnef (spoilers for future arc). Also, PPC in rot13 is CCP. Interesting.

Kiruko and Kuro hail from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, but since they actually have well-defined family and backstory there, I think they're close enough. In their case, whenever they want to pay their parents a visit they just punch in the time period they think their parents should be at, use the D.O.R.K.S. to age themselves up or down appropriately, and hop through. Their parents have no idea what they're really doing, though, for... reasons.

Oh wow. by Kittyauthor on 2021-03-20 21:05:14 UTC Reply

That's a one letter difference from CPP

Maybe I'll rename ~~solely in my head~~ the mirror verse of CPP (the Anti-CPP) to CCP.