Subject: Just so long as they have a reason
Author:
Posted on: 2011-11-25 17:16:00 UTC
I don't know if there's a standardized method for recruiting from World One. Zug was recruited because he managed to defile a nonexistent canon (chess) and came into contact with the PPC as part of their efforts to fix what he'd broken.
I'm currently working on my first agent's background/writing sample, and I've come across a bit of a stumbling block; I can't seem to find the method by which agents are recruited from World One. All of the real world native agents, that I could find, either fell into a rouge plot-hole or were, at some point, in New Caledonia.
What about agents from other parts of the world? How are they recruited? Or if that has yet to be defined, may I make up a method?
I don't know if there's a standardized method for recruiting from World One. Zug was recruited because he managed to defile a nonexistent canon (chess) and came into contact with the PPC as part of their efforts to fix what he'd broken.
I have a World One agent who walked in on a "do you REALLY want to do this?" chat between a gaming friend (and backsliding OFU grad) and said friend's OFU roomie, who had joined the PPC after graduation.
And yes, I know I need to get her agent page up. I've had some RL distractions, like my stepfather's death Monday night.
... who was recruited directly because of her PPC-useful skills (love/respect/knowledge of canon and insanity). The PPC has a well-documented understaffing problem; generally, anyone they can get, they will take, no matter how they wound up in HQ.
I agree that the "falling-into-plothole" explanation is getting a little overused, but there are plenty of other ways for an agent to get into HQ - maybe they have friends who are agents, and on said agents' vacation home they heard about the PPC and decided to tag along and join; maybe they have friends who are agents and said friends invite them in because it's the greatest job ever, you would totally love it, no really it's SO COOL; maybe they saw some suspicious-looking people exorcizing a celebrity on a real-person fic mission, and followed them back to HQ; maybe they're a new agey mystery-lover person who heard about a lot of strange things happening in New Caledonia, went to investigate, and found the entrance to HQ; maybe they saw a really weird ad in the local paper, answered it, and realized they had no idea what they were getting into... pretty much anything goes!
The PPC pretty much allows anything if it's really and truly funny or thought-provoking. If it sort of 'follows the leader' (for a lack of a better term) of the PPC Canon, then it's cool.
My human agent isn't literally from the real world, but was a self-insert that was 'from' the real world... but her story wasn't finished. So really she's from an AU of the 'real' world. The line between the real world and fictional versions of the real world is hard to say... I'd even go so far as to suggest that NO PPC agent is from the actual real world as we know it, but are from AUs of the real world: fictional versions of it.
My two were - they kept the PPC's contact info from their OFU days and joined up later.
There have been other methods of recruitment; it's been hinted at that the PPC sometimes puts adverts out in local papers and the like, and some people have met Agents on holiday and been recruited that way.
Hope that helps!
There's no rule for how Agents from any world can be recruited. As long as it makes sense, or at least as much sense as the PPC can manage.