Subject: Curses.
Author:
Posted on: 2013-08-21 14:07:00 UTC
I had an idea for an agent who joined up in the '60s (a fan of the original Star Trek), but since the PPC wouldn't have existed then I suppose she doesn't work.
Also, Makes-Things - when you put together "ageless" and "good with machines" in my head, you get android. Just an idea.
Way, way (way way way) back in November 2003, when I had only been in the PPC a few months, I wrote a story entitled Origins. That story was a summary, attributed to Agent Dafydd, of the earliest days of the PPC - the Awakening of the Flowers, the discovery of portals and Mary-Sues, and the eventual arrival of human agents.
In the years since, I have written multiple PPC Histories, covering most of the major events between the first agents and the ever-moving present. The Lofty Skies Insanity and the Mysterious Somebody's takeover. The Reorganisation and the fall of the DIS. The Crashing Down Invasion. But in all those years, I have never really gone back to the beginning. Origins remained as a summary, occasionally updated, sometimes missing entirely from the internet, never fleshed out.
Until now.
It's been ten years in the making, and builds on both that very first tale, and everything that has happened since. I hope you enjoy reading it, because here, at long last, is...
Origins: The Beginning of the PPC
hS
I'm running out the door to catch a bus shortly, so I can't say more now or probably for a few days, but I wanted to make sure you knew at least that much. Oh, and I also picked up on the Canterbury Tales thing. {= )
~Neshomeh
This just makes the PPC and its mission seem so grand.
I love how the sort of vague meta-ness of the PPC - how plotholes can shape life, how the PPC is basically a Word World of its own - gets explored. I mean, I knew those things, but I never quite looked it in the eye, so to speak. Makes you think about existence itself. Maybe World One is a Word World somewhere, and to change the world all we need to do is find the right pen and paper...
Also, Makes-Things is awesome. And the Flowers actually seem sympathetic. While their hatred of agents is entertaining, it's not the same as getting this character development.
And Anya and Elisabeth - what happened after? Are they still alive? If not, did they die in the line of duty?
Now I'm going to go off and read all of the other PPC histories. Look what you made me do, hS! :)
Even more than the other Histories, Origins was written to be an exploration of the nature of the PPC. I had to think a lot about what exactly the existence of plotholes implied - not to mention how to create them! A lot of the more fun parts to write were where something slotted in entirely by accident - the parts about Reality Rooms, for instance, weren't planned; I just realised I'd written a perfect explanation for them, and slotted them in.
I'm glad you liked Makes-Things - he was the character I was the most worried about messing up. I tried to use his brief appearances to look into both how awesome he is, and how he (started to) become the nervous wreck we know and love.
The Flowers, I confess, are one of my favourite aspects of the PPC. I've been writing stories from their POVs for a little while now, simply because they're so unusual that it's a voyage of discovery every time. I like to think they had character development through Origins, but I know for sure they had role development - I particularly enjoyed charting a career path for the Queen Anne's Lace that would take her to the Postal Department, while simultaneously making references to her eventual position in Bad Slash.
Anya appears again in Lofty Skies, so you haven't far to read to find her again. Elisabeth I deliberately didn't use again (other than moving her, off-screen, from DBS to DIC); all I know is that she's not around any more.
hS
All that's known so far is that Anya and Elisabeth were the former agent partners of Montgomery Osbert, back when Assassins worked in three-person teams, and they aren't currently involved in PPC affairs, since Osbert is the "oldest Agent currently active", though he's been part of Personnel ever since he got too old to actively go on missions. It's not known if they died, or retired, or went crazy, or what, but Osbert's the only one left, and he never mentions his partners.
There's good story potential behind that, actually. The first members of the Department of Mary Sues, back before the need for Departments existed, and it was just the Poppy taking a chance on three human interlopers. There's still a lot of ground to explore there.
There are also a few ideas I had about the Origin Civil Wars that this story stirred up, since there's still a lot of space for what the main government of Origin was doing, what happened on Origin after most of the Firstborn left to form the Organisation, and the like, which I think could also make a good story.
I think what I liked most about Origins was that, while it does make a good story in itself, it also creates numerous spaces that other stories could fit into, much like how PPC continuity works as a whole. I don't know if that was intentional, but if it was, it was brilliant.
Wait. I just realized something. If Makes-Things was with the PPC since the early days, even before any other humans, but Osbert has been there since the early 1980s(judging by the rough timelines I've found that may not be exact), how is Makes-Things still so young? I've seen Makes-Things described as appearing to be under thirty before, but the 1980s were themselves thirty years ago. Is there something he created that slows down his aging? Is he secretly a vampire? Has he actually died multiple times, and each time is reborn from a clone that retains the majority of his memories, Dune-style? Or has he perhaps modified his body to become an immortal heedra with Nausicaä-verse technology? I just don't know. There are so many answers to a confusing question.
One of my favourite things about writing Origins is exactly what you commented on - being able to leave those spaces. I actually really enjoy this episodic style of writing - it's very different to the single-narrative style of Reorg and CD. I've always had problems writing the epic battles (most of mine consist of long conversations interspersed by little bits of narrative), so in this case I just skipped it. Origins was always about the Flowers, not the wars, anyway.
According to my master timeline, which I don't know where it is, the Civil War took place around 1975. Makes-Things' arrival and the Cascade were in 1988, which means, with Makes-Things' 'long year' comment, that Elisabeth, Anya and Osbert arrived in 1989. That's the same year as Nyx Nightingale, who was recruited by two unidentified Assassins. They don't read like Elisabeth and Anya (who one could speculate were on a temporary assignment - but they aren't), so there are at least five agents when she joins - which means there's probably at least nine, with one team each in DBS (Anya, Osbert and Josephine), DMS (three unknowns, two of them seen here), and DIC (Elisabeth and two unknowns). There could of course be multiple others - there's no real indication as to how fast the PPC grew. I'm going to guess that, once the First Three had proven their worth, the answer is 'very fast indeed'.
Makes-Things' age has fluctuated since he first appeared, pretty much. It's only blind luck that enough of us noticed the passing reference to him being (or rather speaking) Korean for that to stick; his age has never really been pinned down. I suspect some temporal trickery is going on, but as far as I know, it's never been addressed.
hS
I had an idea for an agent who joined up in the '60s (a fan of the original Star Trek), but since the PPC wouldn't have existed then I suppose she doesn't work.
Also, Makes-Things - when you put together "ageless" and "good with machines" in my head, you get android. Just an idea.
The PPC has time-and-space-spanning portal technology. They can send a recruitment letter anywhere, anywhen, so for practical purposes it doesn't matter exactly when it was founded. The fact that HST happens to mirror the Real World calendar is merely for our convenience, so we can keep track of when things happened in relation to each other. It has no real meaning in-universe, and even if it did, there's still nothing stopping anyone from recruiting people from times past. Nume fell into 2003 HST from 1976 Real World Time, after all, and I know we've had people from ancient times, too. {= )
Re. Makes-Things, he's definitely a young man in the Original Series ("cowed young man" in mission 3, "young Asian man" in mission 4). That could put him anywhere from his teens to his early thirties, by my reckoning, so maybe if he was a young teen when he joined up in `88 it works out?
~Neshomeh
(As the originator of the term HST, I can confirm that it exists solely as an authorial convenience. Agents Ontic, Steve and Elanor were born in the mid 21st Century, but joined the PPC in the late 20th...)
One bit of temporal mucking-about I don't think I've mentioned yet is 'standard time partition'. I took great care to use this term entirely randomly in Origins. The Flowers having a non-standardised standard time partition amused me immensely.
So yeah, agents can be from anywhen. But if your goal is to have someone who's been there a long time - longer than thirty-five years - then I still like my AU idea. ;)
hS
The whole wanting her to be there for a long time bit. It's rather important to her character.
Basically, her character arc was that she joined up as a teenage Spock-luster-reformed-Suethor in the '60s. She's seen fan culture at, basically, the beginning, and she's seen it grow and evolve over the years. In reading about Star Trek history, I've read about how fandom spread before the Internet, and I find it fascinating and would love to explore that through someone who's watched it change.
And then we catch up with her now, and she's the oldest active PPC agent. She wants to retire, but she's invaluable, because somehow she's retained her sanity after all those years (She hasn't, but everyone thinks she has because she hasn't tried to set anything on fire.)
Maybe I'll write that AU. If I have time...
I have not really been in any fandom, or in the PPC, before I discovered Harry Potter, but I did see (from afar) fandom evolve since the sixties.
Your imaginary agent, who seems to be about my age, doesn’t really need to have been in the PPC that long to have “seen fan culture at, basically, the beginning, and” have “seen it grow and evolve over the years”. She just has to been there in real life.
Maybe she tried to set up an early OFU, or her own group of canon defenders, but it didn’t work because she didn’t have the technology or magic. Then, when she found the PPC, or the PPC found her, in 1989, she happily joined and became one of the first nine agents. It may have seemed odd to be so much older than the other recruits, but on the other hand this may have helped her to keep the appearance of being as sane as an agent can be.
Okay, I stop here. I shouldn’t try to write your story.
HG
Or rather, past versions of the timeline - I think my original Origins timeline put things significantly further back. It would be delightfully meta for an agent to have joined up in the '60s, then woken up one day to find the PPC had never existed - and then hung around for 20 years to join up when it did again. Well, actually that's not meta - the meta part is the explanation, which is 'because the timeline got changed'. No idea how you'd work it in, though.
(As I recall, the reason for the change was to bring the Flowers' ages down a bit, so they wouldn't already be getting old)
hS
You've missed a trick for once, I'm afraid. A fair chunk of Anya's story is covered in Lofty Skies. For spoiler reasons I won't discuss a lot of it, but I will quote this:
Anya raised an eyebrow. "You've never met Elizabeth, have you?" she asked. "Seriously, a natural team we were not. She switched to DIC as soon as there were three more Agents to make up the team. And the Poppy's been trying to poach Osbert since he arrived. She called him her ‘ideal Assassin' once."
Elisabeth, Anya and Osbert (in that order) were the First Agents - and they were in what became Bad Slash (under the Gladiolus, since the Lace was still in Postal). After a few more agents had joined, Elisabeth transferred to Implausible Crossovers, leaving the First Slasher Team composed of Anya, Osbert and Josephine. Not long after that - there's only about two and a half years between the end of Origins and the beginning of Lofty Skies - Osbert finally switched to the Department of Mary-Sues, and Anya and Josephine got a new third partner - Suzay.
hS
It appears that I lapsed in my continuity recollection with the bit about Lofty Skies. It has been a while since I read that particular history, but that's poor excuse for not knowing the characters involved, especially since one of them is a significant part of PPC history.
The bit about the first Department to be formed and the order that everyone transferred out should be put somewhere on the wiki, to keep anyone else from making that particular mistake in the future. The way it is now, the little information available on the pages of the early Agents indicates that the DMS was the first to have members, and neither Anya nor Elisabeth/Elizabeth(which spelling does she use when referring to herself?) have pages that give anything to expand or contradict that. I will make several edits pertinent to that information myself.
This was just something that I remember rubbing me the wrong way when I read it in Origins, and I just found out why.
In Hornbeam's Tale, Makes-Things is the creator of the blue effect surrounding the plot holes used in the portal generators, which was there since the beginning, but in Crashing Down, the blue glow was said to be added by a short-lived PPC Department as a response to "disastrous incidents" in the PPC's early days. That creates a minor intra-author continuity error that should probably be corrected. I'd say it would be best to just change a few sentences in Hornbeam's Tale to comply with the Crashing Down version, since changing the Crashing Down events would alter a scene-critical plot point.
Also, the relevant passage in Crashing Down uses the phrase "not, though few are aware, and intrinsic feature of the technology", which needs to have an "an" there rather than an "and".
I hope that I have restored some fraction of my lost honor with this post.
I've actually tweaked both stories to fix that - CD now says they were /worried/ about incidents, while Origins mentions the DHS wanted it added. Also, the typo is repaired - and I've found out how to stop that bizarre highlighting in CD, if anyone other than me even noticed that.
hS
In Chapter 3 of Origins: Of course, sending it was a far cry from knowing what it meant.
I think you meant sensing it
HG
Thank you!
hS
A lot of the scenes here are absolute home-runs. I especially love Makes-Things' dialogue and behavior around the flowers, the first agents' recruitment, and all the explanation for plotholes given. I love the development of the term "Merry Pseudo" and the very first Mary Sue ever encountered by the PPC. ("Don't worry. This is for my own good," is beyond a doubt the PERFECT expression of the attitudes of Sues as we define them.)
The only discrepancy I see is that you refer to the Floating Hyacinth with "he," but I was under the impression it was female. Then again, being a Flower, maybe it's both?
Also, I recall once reading about the crew of the ship that brought the seeds to Origin in the first place. I can't seem to find that story now; is that still available? Or was that by another author?
I worked really hard on Origins over several months, so it's good to hear it paid off! (A fair amount of that was figuring out the plotholes - how they fitted together with Mary-Sues and Makes-Things' portals - so I'm really glad you liked that!). I did spend a lot of it chuckling to myself over 'Merry Pseudo', too.
I tried to make the Floating Hyacinth 'it' throughout - mostly for variety; I'm assuming it designated itself female later on. Unfortunately that one line slipped through. I've fixed it now.
hS
I read this story, and as far as I remember, it was by Huinesoron, labeled Prologue, and posted under Origins together with Origins: A Summary. Since its length and detail implied an Origins novel, it obviously had to be replaced by a new Prologue better fitting the Canterbury-like Tales of the Flowers.
But I hope it still exists and can be re-linked somewhere. Also, as Outhra points out, Origins “creates numerous spaces that other stories could fit into”, which may be written by Outhra, or Huinesoron, or anybody else.
So someday we may have The Lost Tales of Origin: What the Flowers didn’t tell Dafydd Illian, and in case of the Lost Prologue or stories written from the Garden’s point of view, couldn’t even have known in this detail.
HG, spending too much time on this board.
Specifically, that Prologue was written by kgarrett, who's now Ekyl; he was going to write a full-length Origins, but never got round to it. He also still has heaps of planning notes for the Civil War and Fall of Origin - which is the other reason I didn't do very much with those aspects.
I believe he still has that prologue; if not, I can give him a copy of the version I took down. I've told him that he (of course!) can still write whatever he likes - but that I'd prefer him not to call it Origins (since I've now finally used that title), and that I'd like him to find somewhere else to post it. I don't think he's done that yet.
But yes - I hope people will write the other aspects I skipped over, ignored, or didn't think of. The PPC is a shared canon, after all - even I shouldn't be allowed to stake out areas for my sole use. And I think I've finished with the Histories at long last - it's been ten years, I reckon I can take a break. ;)
hS
(Too much time on the Board? There is no such thing!)
(and I'll probably get around to reading the rest of your history stuff at some point, now that I've been drawn in by this.)
I was wondering about the chapter titles, which appear to be somewhat inspired by the Canterbury Tales. I'm pretty sure that was deliberate, so I just wanted to ask how close the correspondences were, having not read Canterbury myself.
The '[So-and-so]'s Tale' format is straight from the Canterbury Tales, of course. Less obvious is that all the titles (Summoner, Shipman, etc etc) are the [So-and-so]'s who occupy that place in the original titles. These titles were chosen for their relevance to the chapter and the characters in it.
As far as I know, however, there's no correspondence between Origins and the narrative of the Canterbury Tales. By which I mean, any you do find are clearly me being really clever and aren't at all coincidence. ;)
hS
In the Big Thorn's Tale, you have him say, we Firstborn shared our knowledge and built on in before you ever awoke. I believe you meant to say built on it.
I've read up to the end of the Floating Hyacinth's tale, and I must admit that you seem to have the Flowers' characters down to a T.
One little problem I detected. In this "sentence":
Even the Hyacinth, untrained though it was, could feel the low-intensity mental signal the detector – now attached to a massive framework, like a free-standing doorway.
at least one word is missing; the sentence reads like a fragment.
Which word(s), ultimately only you know, but at least one word is missing in the clause before the dash. Perhaps that clause was supposed to read
could feel the low-intensity mental signal sent by the detector
or perhaps
could feel the low-intensity mental signal of the detector.
Both fixed. And thank you for the other comment, too - the Hyacinth was actually the one I was most worried about, because I've never written much with it before. So it's good to know you still think they're in character after you've read its contribution...
hS
Being that I have not done a lot of reading of Floaters missions, I am not that knowledgable of the Hyacinth's personality, so I would not suggest that you get too comfortable. Nonetheless, your portrayal of the Hyacinth is plausible; there was nothing that made me think "There's no way she'd act like that!"
As for the other Flowers, though, I can honestly say that I haven't seen anything so far that has come off as OOC.
Hm, now I have something to read. But a preemptive congratulations and good job to you!