Since I've noted of late a distressing tendency to forget a few things, I figure now is as good a time as any to remind everyone of them.
1/ The PPC does not condone torture. The only two instances of it in the Original Series are a) Jay's sockpuppets, and b) sending a 'Sue off with Miss Cam. In the final TOS mission, No Way Back, it is explicitly stated that "you know Headquarters frowns on torture".
2/ Permission is granted to people so that they can participate in the world of the PPC. This is not a right -- it is a privilege. Certain forms of writing are allowed without formal Permission -- MSTs are outside the remit of the PPC, Fill the Plothole is non-canonical, and participation in RPs as minor characters is fine. Missions and large changes to the PPC canon are not. This hasn't been previously stated, but is in effect as of now.
3/ The PPC is first and foremost about the missions, not the massive events. I realise I'm actually the one who started this trend, with the Reorganisation and now Crashing Down, but I also have 21 missions written and posted. It's fun to have RPs and plan massive attacks on or by the PPC, but that's not what we're about. The number of missions being written has dropped dramatically of late, and that's worrying.
4/ You don't need to come up with a quirk or shiny new concept to write your missions. Again, there is a tendency for people to want to make their mission stand out by doing something big -- be it a new Department, an uber-badfic, an arc plot, an obscure fandom, whatever. That's not necessary. I'm reminded of, I think it was Artemis, who wrote the original DIA stories, and then stepped back and wrote Agent Aerilyn and Zera in an effort to get closer to the spirit of the Original Series.
5/ Above all, the PPC is supposed to be FUN. We don't write these stories to slaughter 'Sues, that's the Agents' motivations. We write them to entertain ourselves and one another. We do this with Agent-Agent interaction (yes, that's why they work in teams), Agent-Sue interaction (come on, who didn't find Mr Socko hilarious?), and Agent-picking-on-Sue action. That's what we're here for. That's why we keep reading.
So I'm going to make a couple of suggestions. No, call them challenges. First up, I'm going to point everyone to The Original Series and say that we all need to read it again. Everyone. That's it -- just read the series.
The second challenge is the tough one. For anyone who has a set of Agents (and has been granted Permission), even if you're in the middle of doing something else right now, I challenge you all to drop every dangling plot thread, massive project, everything, and write a mission. Write a mission which isn't connected to anything else. Backdate it if that makes it easier for you -- if your Agents are currently tied up in arc-plot angst, set it six months before that started. No foreshadowing, no plot relevance, no nothing -- just a plain, simple mission in whatever Department your Agents happen to be in. Or happen to have been in, if they're retired; I'm going to try and put together a backdated Dafydd & Selene mission, despite Dafydd's quitting a couple of years back.
Is everyone going to manage this? Of course not. But I hope everyone's going to try. And I do recommend completing the first challenge before the second -- it'll make it easier.
Hopefully this post will be taken in the right way -- I'm trying to bring the PPC back to its roots, not attack anyone in particular (I promise you that I've ignored most of these points at one time or another). Still, I'm always here as a punching bag if someone gets too upset about it -- and provided you're not afraid of what my wife will do (you shooooould be...)
hS