Subject: I like the implied subplot about Flower politics.
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Posted on: 2014-05-02 21:23:00 UTC
You don't really see that come up very much, so the little games of power that I'm sure go on between the Department Heads would be an interesting thing to have in the background. I've been pondering writing some stuff along those lines myself one of these days.
So, I was working on some ideas for PPC agents last night, and I began to wonder about something.
If I present them in the same way that I present my agents (meaning, light hearted and funny, as per PPC standards), is it okay to invent some recurring antagonists for my agents?
"Recurring antagonists" could mean any number of things. Is it a few Suvians who they failed to kill in one mission, who then keep following them around and causing trouble whenever the Agents enter their continuum? Is it a trans-dimensional organization that your agents offended for some reason, and keeps intruding during missions to try and capture the Agents? Is it a single force that generally dislikes this one group of two or three people for whatever reason, and invades their missions to deliberately and spitefully cause problems?
None of those three are particularly great ideas for something that shows up all the time in a mission, because it's going to eclipse the rest of the badfic if it happens too many times, and even if it doesn't, it would be an interference. Most antagonists in a PPC story tend to either be from within an individual badfic, in which case it's self-contained within the mission, from a series of stories that a Sue appears in or a single badfic writer who makes many similar fics, which is similar to the previous option but there are recurring elements that may play a role during the mission, or from an out-of-fic threat like the Black Cats or Slorp. That's because in all of those cases, the presence of an enemy either enhances the mission in which it's encountered or does not intersect with any recorded mission and operates on its own.
Of course, that doesn't mean that it's impossible for a recurring threat to be done well in this context. It's just that the PPC format doesn't really fit well with the concept of an archenemy. It is fully possible for something to be structured in a way that can take advantage of the nature of the PPC and still act as a recurring opponent, it's just not something that's been done yet. So, it will take at least a few more details before we can see if your idea would work. What did you have in mind?
Okay, well, one specific example that I have in mind is a member of the PPC Legal Department who dislikes one of my agents, and is constantly trying to get another, who is almost always breaking the rules, arrested. I have him in mind for other stories besides missions, mostly, but he is my example.
He is based off of a combination of Atticus Finch and Hannibal Lecter. He is a smart lawyer, but he is also a jerk who takes the rules very seriously. The agent he wants to arrest is a nearly insane member of the Mary Sue Experimentation and Research Department, and the agent he dislikes for more personal reasons is from his fanfic of origin, which will likely remain unnamed because it doesn't really exist. (Just to double check, when creating characters, they don’t necessarily have to be from existing fics, right?)
Featuring an agent of Legal would really deprive the department of the aura of mystery that makes the whole thing work - sure, there are named agents there, but we've never seen one in the flesh and I think doing so would ruin Legal's mystique and reputation, especially since the department's dedicated to enforcing the laws of the multiverse without bias. Pursuing a petty grudge in such a manner doesn't fit their MO.
(Also, Legal wouldn't be in charge of arrests, that's the DIA - of course, I'd be happy to help out if you decided to go with a detective from Internal Affairs or something, though again see the thing about petty grudges. And you're right, characters don't have to have come from an existing fic - it's just that a lot do because of our tendency to recruit salvageable badfic characters.)
Maybe if I have that he gets fired from the Legal Department for his petty bias?... In fact, that gives me some ideas...
I had scrapped some plans for giving him some minions of sorts from the DIA, so maybe I can bring them back.
I have to go now. You gave me some excellent ideas that I want to start playing around with. Thanks for the help.
Yeah, don't do that.
It'll be more of a reluctant partnership in which they work toward a common goal, then. Or something like that. I'll work out the details.
Quite honestly, it implies he did something that the DIA would probably arrest him for, not team up.
That's very true. Where would you suggest I put him instead? I have a few ideas, but I also need more perspectives.
The DIA simply doesn't work the way you seem to want, and neither does Legal. However, if your vengeful ex-partner were in Intel, they're in an ideal position to mess with people by assigning them the worst fics they can find and stuff. Of course, subtlety is still required, he can't be blatantly trying to get them killed right off the bat, but it gives you more to work with.
He doesn't really want them dead. He thinks that they are dangerous and wants them kicked out.
However, I will take your suggestion into consideration. Thanks.
Intel's such an ideal location because he can easily create conditions that can cause them to be forced out of action, be it being killed, snapping in action or screwing up so severely they're removed from the field - though keep in mind the kind of thing that'd get someone expelled from the PPC entirely is probably a really serious crime, not something he could create unless he frames them for something.
We've only ever seen members of Legal a handful of times(it's usually the Fern), always connected to something extremely important. Having someone representing or formerly representing Legal going after another PPC employee for some perceived slight or other not only breaks the whole persona, it casts a bad light on the sort of people that Legal as a whole would hire to uphold the Narrative Laws.
Also, the DIA is not going to be anyone's flunkies. That's not how it works. They're their own fully realized group, with their own means of operation. If there was an Agent acting up, they wouldn't need to be sicced on the offender by some observer; they'd analyze the situation and deal with it themselves. Sure, a patrol officer or someone noticing potentially illegal activity would have to report it, because they're not omniscient or anything, but they don't need to be subservient to some shadowy figure in order to deal with people who are breaking the rules. That's already the majority of their job.
The Fern makes a single appearance in Crashing Down, to the Sub Rosa. Everything else is either mentions or, occasionally, messages.
I don't have a veto, obviously - we don't work like that - but I will argue vehemently against any attempt to show, discuss, or otherwise reveal anything (further) of Legal's inner workings. That includes ex-agents who might talk about it.
hS
An unnamed lawyer made an appearance in "Catastrophe Theory: Bound and Gagged". Still tried to keep them mysterious, though.
-Phobos
As much potential as there is with Legal's workings, exploring them would ruin what Legal is in a sense, their role in this setting. They kind of have to be this aloof, mysterious figure for the effect to work as well - I mean sure, logically the staff of Legal are PPC agents with a job to do just like anyone in the other departments, but labouring that point too much would kind of miss the point.
Besides, those guys are lawyers; if they're anything like World One attorneys, they're working at least eighty hours a week and don't have a whole lot of time for anything else. :P
Yes, it was mostly just an example, but if he were to be in Legal, he would not always have been the way I described him. I would have had to come up with some backstory.
As for the DIA, I plan on having some of my agents rule breakers anyway. Therefore, in a roundabout way, they could be considered lackies, from a certain point of view.
I will try and make it rather complicated so that it can go on for a little while, but for a while, I will be focusing on the actually missions.
I've reread it several times, and I'm still not entirely sure what you're trying to say with it. One or more of your Agents would break so many rules of the PPC so regularly that he constantly has a DIA squad on his back, and this means that the DIA squad would be someone's cronies? Whose? The rule-braking Agent's? The probably-ever-only-claimed-to-work-for-Legal guy? How do those two points match up? I don't get it.
So, here's what I meant.
There are going to be a couple of agents of mine who break rules, and therefore some people in the PPC believe that they are detrimental to the organization as a whole. For example, a member of the Department of Mary Sue Experimentation and Research who has gone off the deep end and somehow still hangs around. He would join forces with the DIA to try and get him over to FicPsych. That sort of thing. And he dislikes my agents who are sane because they stand up for the ones who are not and insist that they stay on the team.
The ideas are still evolving, so that is just an example.
With any story about rule-breakers, a lot depends on exactly which rules they break, and how they break them.
For example, if your agents actively kill canon characters just to get at the Sues, then your antagonist won't have to worry about finding henchmen. All the other agents will be queuing up to work for him. And not just the agents. All the boarders and other members too!
OTOH if your agents regularly turn a blind eye to some of the Sues' lesser (but still chargeable) offences, then why is the antagonist picking on these agents rather than all the other ones who do the same?
Well, what I have specifically in mind is that one of my Agents who works with the Department of Mary Sue Experimentation and Research is infamous for his insane experiments, and since he is going senile, he doesn't realize that he puts his lab assistants in peril. His most successful experiment is going to be that he implanted additional personality traits into a captured Shakespeare Sue to make her a well rounded character and so that th Mary Sue traits were more like traits of a real person, meaning they have drawbacks. Since Mary Sues are not usually allowed into HQ, this makes people, especially the assassins, uneasy, because she works in the Department of Mary Sues as an assassin herself, but her Mary Sue traits are still there.
These are some examples of what rules they will be breaking, because for the reasons I have stated above, the scientist agent is constantly being banned from his lab, but always finds a way back in.
What's that about "no Mary Sues allowed in HQ"? They're not allowed to run around freely, no, but the reformed Sues have just as much self-determinance as any other character, provided that they're taking all of the necessary measures to prevent relapse, such as the use of Logicillin and help from the Psychs, and the Sues that are being tested by the Psychs and the DMSEAR are kept restrained or in stasis when there aren't any tests taking place. There are plenty of ex-Mary Sues that are agents here. That's not really all that much of a problem. While I can see some people being suspicious of an ex-Sue agent because of her background, it wouldn't put someone who made an agent out of a Sue on some kind of watch list.
To another point, since PPC policy means that Mary Sues aren't considered truly sapient, while it might be unnerving for an outsider to see someone experimenting on them and putting them through numerous mental modifications, the higher-ups wouldn't get one of the scientists in trouble just for doing so, especially if the PPC gets a new agent out of his research. The department is called Department of Mary Sue Experiments and Research, after all. The experimentation is a big part of their job.
For the last part, though, that makes more sense. The DMSEAR doesn't have a lot of active scientists, so not only would potential danger to any of the lab workers would need to be cut down as much as possible, it would make sense that they wouldn't send someone into retirement after he'd started becoming unstable, they'd just keep him away from the current tests and subjects and such so he wouldn't mess anything up. His scientific knowledge could be important in the future, after all. Yet, he'd gotten so attached to his work over the years that he keeps coming in when no one else is around, just trying to finish his last project, and he either does not know why or can't remember why everyone is always trying to get rid of him. There's character potential in that.
I see. But what if the Mary Sue was thrown into action before she was ready, because the scientist thought that he had succeeded, and therefore the Mary Sue could snap back at any time?
Oh, okay, good. At least one of my agent ideas is far along in development. With everyone helping me, my agents will be awesome!
The PPC at least recognises Sues as sentient enough that torturing them, like torturing anything else, is strictly forbidden; at least one agent has actually been arrested by the DIA then forced to go to FicPsych for it. So if the experiments start crossing into the inhumane I imagine there'd be some trouble.
The Mary Sues are still alive, even if they aren't people, and so someone who does unspeakable things to them would be just as horrible and unfit to perform science as if they were doing it else with any other creature.
I was just saying on the matter of "wouldn't get in trouble for experimenting on Sues" and such. It seemed worth pointing out that if the scientist was getting outright unethical or inhumane, he very well could get in trouble.
Of course, that kind of trouble would probably end with him in a cell in Central or a FicPsych ward, so.
Oops. I made another typo. If some Agents were capable of bringing all nearby rules to a halt, they'd have a lot more than one DIA squad after them.
We'll see. For now, I have other concepts that I want to try. Maybe I can replace him with one of them when I have them fleshed out.
What if the antagonist was an ex-partner of the lead character? We're always being told how assassins and other field agents can be driven crazy by the worlds they visit, so maybe one of them would end up paranoid and obsessive enough to plot against another agent.
Maybe something went badly wrong on a previous mission and one of the agents had a breakdown; FicPsych has (wrongly) cleared him as fit for work again, but he still blames his former partner for the incident and wants revenge.
It's a bit of a cliché, but I'm sure a good writer could make it work.
That could work...
What other Departments could I send him in? What Departments are considered untrustworthy? Which ones' would be able to maintain their reputation even with a betrayal? I would prefer something from Infrastructure, but I'll use an Action Department if I have to.
Maybe he could just have moved to an administrative post in the the same department, perhaps even the same division. Following his breakdown he was taken off active duty and forced to become something like the Deputy Junior Under-Assistant to the divisional head.
From the Flowers' POV this is post officially more senior than a field agent (from the Flowers' POV everyone, even the tealady, is more senior than a field agent, with the possible exception of Mr Norris the janitor and that's only because he fell through a plothole from My Immortal). But obviously this guy doesn't feel the same way, and that adds to his resentment.
Of course, this makes him more like Roy Slater than Javert, but that feels more in keeping with the PPC style.
That's another thought provoking suggestion. I'll take that into consideration as well. Thanks.
Thanks. Glad you found the suggestion useful. Us newbies have to stick together against the killjoys in the old guard, right? (And you'll find I'm very good at thinking up story ideas, but hate the process of turning them into actual stories. So I'll probably come up with some more suggestons for you.)
I'm good at inventing ideas as well, I'm just not used to the PPC process. Small stuff like that can really impede the process.
I don't consider the old guard types to be killjoys. They want want to help us out too, but they do tend to put stuff through the meat grinder. That is a good way to be sure the characters are up to scratch. I know what you mean, though.
If I come up with more ideas that I am uncertain of, I will post them here on the board.
You could take totally the opposite approach, and make the antagonist one of the Flowers. This will make it easier to get henchmen, since who's going to actively disobey a direct order from a Flower? And you don't have to worry about your story damaging the reputation of any human(oid) agents in any departments.
(On a vaguely similar note, I'm sure that somewhere in HQ there's an acacia tree that's always moaning that everyone only thinks of it as "the Acacia", not "the Acacia".)
Hmmm... A rogue Flower. That gives me an idea...
Really? I must not have come across that one. I'll check the wiki page.
Keep in mind a few things, though:
1) There would still need to be a good reason why it was doing what the story makes it do. Petty grudges or minor whims are still not the best motivation of someone in authority, though admittedly, a Flower would probably be able to spin some of the minor mishaps agents get up to on a daily basis into a legitimate grievance in case of trouble.
2) Since the Flowers are of a higher status, one of them picking on members of another Flower's staff might result in a loss of standing for the aggressor. Only the Department/Division Heads are allowed to ruin their agents' lives, consarn it! On the plus side, if the "rogue" Flower is found out and demoted or something, the grudge wouldn't be nearly as petty any more.
I'm sure I'm missing something else crucial, but I'm pressed for time now and don't want to have to retype my post later.
Well, you've never heard of it because there's been no Acacia Flower shown in any stories yet. That doesn't mean one can't be made, of course! It would be a bit of a one-joke character, but it would at least be an amusing single joke.
The Morning Glory. She's the Quartermaster, part of the Department of Operations. She's been desperate to be promoted to Head of Operations for years, but has been passed over (at least once!). She's disgruntled, doesn't have the standing to lose, and, significantly, is in charge of supplies. We normally imagine agents going directly to DoSAT or the Armory, and maybe they do - but what about when they need a new backpack? Or new clothes? Or a new notebook for writing charges in?
Of course, this doesn't answer why she'd be trying to sabotage one agent in particular, but that's why we hire writers. ;)
hS
Kelemen Totth runs that, unless he works for the Morning Glory and could somehow be prevented from doing his job.
Probably easy to just say she's Kelemen's boss or something though.
Not only would we get to see some passive-aggressive competition between the two sides, if one causes problems for someone, the disrupted employee could pick up their basics from the other, ensuring that there would have to be at least some modicum of customer service remaining even if the Morning Glory decides to get spiteful. Plus, the fact that someone else in HQ does the same thing it does and it's not powerful enough to do anything about it could lead to even more seething.
Oh, what if, after seeing how ambitious and encompassing the Morning Glory was, the Wisteria set up the Supply Depot expressly for the purpose of keeping the other Flower in check? It makes sense given his personality; since the Wisteria never liked direct management, and Crashing Down says that "his Divisions operate by shouting as loud as they can for attention", he might think a little healthy competition would help show the Morning Glory its place without him needing to be disrupted from whatever he was doing that day to deal with the matter officially.
Personally, I think being official Quartermaster would mean that the Morning Glory would have a larger number of the standard-issue basics and that she would be the one responsible for outfitting new agents for the first time, ensuring it had at least a bit of guaranteed workflow by the other Flowers, while Kelemen would have a wider range of potential items for sale, but not many of the more official wares at one time. There's nothing to support that beyond speculation, but it seems like a logical enough distinction to make.
The mission the Depot's appeared in pretty much had it doing exactly that - it didn't charge, you just went to Kelemen with what you needed and he got it. It's not like the difference between, I dunno, the Armoury and Big Murphy's, because the Depot's implied to sorta be the official supply place.
(Also keep in mind the 2006 invasions were almost eight years ago. I doubt Operations is in the shambles it was under the Wisteria.)
I don't know if anyone else has used the Supply Depot or Kelemen Totth. When I added them in to the story, it was with the idea that since agents basically don't get paid, but somehow all have uniforms, people always have chalk, candles, and bells, and the minis all get fed (even the ones with specialized diets), that the PPC should have some sort of place where basic supplies are issued not really for free, more like as part of the job--like how uniforms are supplied to armies. Kelemen had a list (that seemed to sort of magically update) of every agent and their minis, and what the agent was issued was entirely a standard set of items based on that. Luxury items like chocolate and bleep-products were not included at all. Tech products and weapons were also not included at all, because they have their own places. This was much more like the very basics--mini supplies, uniforms (on a replacement schedule), and those little items for things like exorcism that don't fall under tech, weapons, or canon source, but are still needed. Nothing from the Supply Depot would be fancy at all. Just the absolute basics.
I very intentionally left it vague, so that other people could fill in more details as the story progressed. I think the idea that he works directly for the Morning Glory works best with what I originally had in mind (and makes continuity simpler, if that is what we want). The Flower is the Quarter Master who keeps track of supplies and determines what is on the lists, and he is the manual labor that interacts with the agents. I have no idea where they would obtain these standard items--that might make for some interesting infrastructure stories.
Also, I think it would be funny to see agents that had destroyed their uniforms (through whatever means) way before it would be time to issue a new set, and had to face the wrath of the Morning Glory or scrounge enough trade goods to buy replacements at one of the stores.
I'll keep those things in mind. Thanks.
Oh, okay. That is an idea. Hmmm...
You don't really see that come up very much, so the little games of power that I'm sure go on between the Department Heads would be an interesting thing to have in the background. I've been pondering writing some stuff along those lines myself one of these days.
If the ex-partner was transferred to one of the non-action parts of the DIA, and was relatively clever, he could cover his tracks with a little work. The issue is, if he didn't want to get caught, attacking your Agents directly would be too risky. More likely, he'd just set them up to go on NSFB missions in the hopes that they snapped.
That's an idea. I'll stash that away in my trove of possibilities.
I will think about this. Thanks for that.
Also, I'm curious. Why do you type all your subject lines in caps?