Subject: Could we not? Or make it smaller scale?
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Posted on: 2014-02-08 05:06:00 UTC
We already had the Blackout drag everyone into it one way or another last year, and if we start doing shenanigans like this over and over - especially stuff on the level of "all the Boarders are agents and all the agents are stuck on World One" - we have 2009 all over again.
...why not have a period of time where the writers of the PPC have to take over from the Agents and vice versa? Like, the Agents have to deal with reading from ff.net and our own problems in life (e.g., college, taxes) and we have to go into the fics? Could be interesting.
Speaking of which, I might claim a fic soon. O_O
~Kitty
I am curious to know how it would work for those of us with no agents to speak of. Mostly I am mostly talking about myself since I probably won't have an agent for a long time coming.
They are usually specifically written to be capable of dealing with the problems inherent to traveling between worlds repairing the injuries to reality, whether that's simply in their personality or whether they're part of an advanced species or have access to magic or some such, while the Boarders, being normal humans who have no experience hunting down and killing super-powerful creatures, blowing up planets, or untangling timelines, would be considerable less able to deal with the Agents' problems, especially if it's a sudden switch that leaves them replaced with the characters they write. I'm not saying that everyone would be absolutely incompetent, and in fact there may be a few of us who could do their jobs decently or even well if they were lucky enough to land in positions where they could best use their existing skills, but there would be many that wouldn't or couldn't be acclimated to the job, and our performance as plot protectors would suffer for it.
Plus, keep in mind that PPC Boarders who have any Agents tend to make at least two or three of them. If the writers and Agents swap places, not only would we be less capable of dealing with the job, but the number of PPC employees would drop by at least half. Considering that the PPC is already constantly understaffed, that would definitely not be a good thing, especially since practically nobody writes for Infrastructure or Security any more. SeaTurtle would be all alone in the Intel offices, and Huinesoron would be the only person working on Building Maintenance while also running double-duty with DOGA. And who would be the Department of External Security? All of its employees seen so far are either free-to-use or haven't yet been defined, but without them, the nebulous threats on HQ that the DES Agents spend so much time fighting that they are barely even shown would have full freedom in HQ, and all that could stop them would be a small contingent of Internet people who are still getting a handle on their new duties.
I realize that this is a very cynical interpretation. For a bit of levity, feel free to imagine the flip side of this, with the Agents being sent to Earth and having to live "normal" lives. Think of all of the elves that would suddenly need to learn how to drive cars to keep from getting fired from their new jobs, or the numerous anthropomorphic or otherwise humanized animals walking around the grocery store buying food while deliberately not making eye contact with the dozens of people who are staring at the strange creature in their midst and wondering if they should call security.
...I'm a bit more fascinated by tossing the agents into RL--possibly even preferably our own RL. Dawn would probably alienate a large number of my friends within days. The Elves...would awkward it up. I don't even really want to know how a Klingon would deal with being a TA in a class of fourth graders--although you never know, he might be surprisingly good at it...apart from that, I'm blanking, but it sounds pretty amusing.
~DF
...that we can turn this into an RP or something?
I'm in.
We already had the Blackout drag everyone into it one way or another last year, and if we start doing shenanigans like this over and over - especially stuff on the level of "all the Boarders are agents and all the agents are stuck on World One" - we have 2009 all over again.
What if it wasn't everyone who ended up in the Boarders' RLs trying to figure things out (and vice versa)--what if it's just that there's a particular plothole or two in HQ that a couple of agents happen to walk into? That way, whoever wants to write these stories can do so--but it wouldn't involve everyone. The plotholes could even only be active for one or two days, and they could be in somewhat out-of-the-way places to begin with. Most of HQ need never even hear about it--it could just be one of those rumors that someone complains to the Multiverse Monitor about, or not even that.
Thoughts? Because this really seems like an awesome opportunity for character development (and shenanigans), but you're right about the large-scale aspect (and wow, the Blackout was already last year...) Would this make it small-scale enough?
~DF
Sorta like a side story, just done for kicks. We could write posts about how agents (re)adjust to life in World One and how us as Boarders struggle with the concept of actually making the PPC work.
There would be far too many unlikely scenarios that would need to all line up to make a Boarder-Agent switch possible, and besides, such a switch would probably kick off the Swansong crisis all over again times a few hundred if we keep said switch in-continuity. If we make it a non-canon AU, though, we wouldn't necessarily need to explain why the switch happened, since it wouldn't have repercussions aside from the ones within the RP, and the consequences could be explored, if people want to do so, but they wouldn't be made part of the official PPC canon on account of the entire scenario being out-of-continuity. It wouldn't be an Emergency; it would just be for fun.
Because if I can play as the competent, spider-robot-building version of Outhra I allude to in some Board posts, I'm in, but if it would have to be my IRL self who speaks primarily in awkward pauses, social confusion, and inadvertently-conversation-dominating monologues, I would probably be too embarrassed to get involved in the RP.
Yeah, I think I'd be spread thin over DMS, DIC, DMSE&R, the Multiverse Monitor, and DOI, and that's just for the characters I've actually written complete things for. Factoring the mentioned characters, I'd also have to do Medical, DoSAT, A/V, and the Cafeteria. Phew.
But I could totally do the Cluedo thing. I think.
That being said, a good question would be, if you were in the PPC, where would you serve? I mean, realistically speaking, that is. I'm good at drawing, editing, and making snarky comments, so I'd probably be in DTE. Or maybe writing for the Monitor like I kinda do already.
Conversely, I can imagine Christianne and Eledhwen fitting right into the culture of Wellesley. Both have had experience with World One-styled college education and Christianne is a raging feminist and fandom-collector, so...
I have Agents in the DMS and DIC, plus Dr Kindheart, Caroline (DoSAT), and Anne, who due to reasons I can't remember if I've explained yet is simultaneously in DoSAT, Intelligence, and probably in a bunch of other departments in small roles.
Out of my Agents... I don't think most of them would do very well in high school. I don't think any of them are from anything like a World 1 background or education.
I can see myself doing well in Intelligence. I quite like making extremely detailed explanations of Why Bad Thing Is Bad. so that'd work all right.
...and find out that you guys have a funny statue of a man sleepwalking in the snow wearing just his underpants. somebody please put a coat on the poor thing and give him some hot chocolate, I feel bad for it
I wish my campus would do fun things like this, but no, it's just rain, power outages, cruddy lab equipment, and construction. At least there's a huge telescope a few hours from here.
Otherwise known as That Statue, the Naked Guy, and Creeper.
He's at the heart of a fierce debate about art versus triggers right now, which the mainstream press hasn't done justice to. Both sides have their good points, yet all everyone else seems to care about is "OMG A NAKED MAN STATUE AT A WOMEN'S COLLEGE!!1!1 HOW SCANDALOUSSS!1!!1!", which is really irritating.
I'm with you on the put a coat on the dude thing. Problem is, every time someone does so, said coat/scarf/hat mysteriously vanishes within a couple of hours...
We have two telescopes. One of them is antique. They're both in a very nice observatory behind the Science Centre.
...he hangs around on campus, and he's probably very, very cold?
I HAVE NO REGRETS
That would be so funny.