ooc Salem University OOC (Open)

[Duality 10,739]

@Buck Testa

I'm very sorry for the massive delay. I've barely had the brainpower to so much as follow up on job applications after the amount I've been sinking into working on my assignments.

Hoping to get a post up soon. As soon as I can spare enough neurons. 

[Denim&Venöm 18,690]

Sounds like everypony is having RL issues at the moment. 

Maybe we should put this on hiatus and reconvene at a later date?

[Buck Testa 5,505]

1 hour ago, Denim&Venom said:

Sounds like everypony is having RL issues at the moment. 

Maybe we should put this on hiatus and reconvene at a later date?

If we go on hiatus its incredibly likely it will die entirely. I'd rather we not. 

[Denim&Venöm 18,690]

1 hour ago, Buck Testa said:

If we go on hiatus its incredibly likely it will die entirely. I'd rather we not. 

But you're busy and Passion is busy and Duality is busy. I don't know how long we can commit to keeping the RP alive with key players having more pressing demands than what a text based RP will allow.

[Duality 10,739]

I'm hoping to get a post up within a week. At any rate, my busyness is guaranteed to be over and done with within three weeks, because that's when my semester ends. Shouldn't need to be a formal hiatus so much as a lull in activity like we had during the middle of the year.

[Passion 3,484]

I would like to very much speak for myself instead of others' playing my advocate.

I've managed to squeeze one post in I'll manage to squeeze others in as well. Was planning to write another one this weekend however I'm back home with family since I forgot holidays were coming. Other than that, as I've said in my previous post, if I'll need a break, won't be able to post or will want to leave, I'll say it.

 

Needless to say, I support Buck's thesis.

[Buck Testa 5,505]

10 hours ago, Denim&Venom said:

But you're busy and Passion is busy and Duality is busy. I don't know how long we can commit to keeping the RP alive with key players having more pressing demands than what a text based RP will allow.

In all my time rping I will tell you how many times I've seen an rp go on hiatus and then be able to start up again. 

0 times. I've never seen it done.

It might be possible, but from my past experience it's pretty much the death nail in the rp. As other replies since mine have said, we are all willing to post, we just need time, and we are actively engaging in the OOC. This thing is still kicking it just needs some patience. I'm personally waiting on @Duality's post since my character is in her class. 

[Passion 3,484]

On my end I need to reply to dragon's post it seems though I've wanted to check what you or Arid will do, but in end I don't feel like holding things up again so I'll just get to it once I am back home and settle my bussiness.

[Buck Testa 5,505]

My feelings towards this rp right now be like 

 

[dragon4111 914]

@Buck Testa

Well life is getting at @Passion

[Duality 10,739]

@Buck Testa @dragon4111

I would have had time to post last week as I hoped, but my final project presentation has been unexpectedly announced to be scheduled this Tuesday and, due to recent mass overloads of work, I haven't actually finished my final project. Like, at all. I've got a couple of half-done simulations and absolutely nothing else, it's that bad.

Maybe next week I can figure something out, but for now I need all the writing agility and mental ability I can cram in my cranium. My sincerest apologies for subjecting you to such a wait.

[Duality 10,739]

Lepton, have I missed writing her.

[Denim&Venöm 18,690]

So while we're still waiting on people, those of us that are here still up for world building and discussing this worlds alternate history? 

[Denim&Venöm 18,690]

@Arid_Blitz @Duality @Passion @Buck Testa @dragon4111 

So since this RP has stalled yet again, I'd like to take this time to focus on our world building. Now I have proposed my idea of alternate history, but a lot of my other ideas regarding the story going forward focus on a pivitol event in particular: the introduction of the world to the existence of magic and those who use it. 

We need something big for this revelation to have taken place. Something to grab the attention of over a hundred world governments and the eyes of 7 billion people. A few magical incidents caught on tape won't cut it on a global level. I don't think even a demonstration in front of the UN council would do it. Something needs to happen to make the governments of the world go "Magic is real. It's part of our lives now and we need to teach those who have it how to use it responsibly." 

Apparently the original idea was that this was sparked by some incursions from the "Daemon realm." Well why don't we expand upon that? How about instead of just incursions, it was a full on invasion. Decades prior, a super massive horde of Daemons break through some how and now the nations of the world must band together to fight this alien threat. It's Silent Hill meets Gears Of War.  Nations fall. Millions are lost. Human and Pelijae alike take up arms for the apocalyptic battle. Only for Mages to reveal themselves and turn the tide of battle. Magic is real and it becomes the earths salvation. Or latest means of destruction. 

[Duality 10,739]

Just now, Denim&Venom said:

@Arid_Blitz @Duality @Passion @Buck Testa @dragon4111 

So since this RP has stalled yet again, I'd like to take this time to focus on our world building. Now I have proposed my idea of alternate history, but a lot of my other ideas regarding the story going forward focus on a pivitol event in particular: the introduction of the world to the existence of magic and those who use it. 

We need something big for this revelation to have taken place. Something to grab the attention of over a hundred world governments and the eyes of 7 billion people. A few magical incidents caught on tape won't cut it on a global level. I don't think even a demonstration in front of the UN council would do it. Something needs to happen to make the governments of the world go "Magic is real. It's part of our lives now and we need to teach those who have it how to use it responsibly." 

Apparently the original idea was that this was sparked by some incursions from the "Daemon realm." Well why don't we expand upon that? How about instead of just incursions, it was a full on invasion. Decades prior, a super massive horde of Daemons break through some how and now the nations of the world must band together to fight this alien threat. It's Silent Hill meets Gears Of War.  Nations fall. Millions are lost. Human and Pelijae alike take up arms for the apocalyptic battle. Only for Mages to reveal themselves and turn the tide of battle. Magic is real and it becomes the earths salvation. Or latest means of destruction. 

The daemon realm incursion wasn't an incursion of daemons, it was an incursion of the realm itself.

For an unknown but suspected to be natural reason, the daemon dimensions began bleeding through in their entirety into the Earth set of dimensions, which resulted in a lot of dangerous 'glitches' in reality and gave accessways into our universe for the realm's denizens - not many of whom were necessarily hostile, but the exact nature of the 'glitches' and of effectively all of the denizens is heavily classified with regards IC, since descriptions of breaks in our reality give hints as to how to potentially magically replicate breaks in our reality and the denizens of the daemon realm are extremely powerful and are thus not entities that anyone in charge wants random people trying to contact, regardless of how peaceful the denizens may be.

When the governments of the world became unable to deny the nature of what was going on any longer, a large group of mixed-race mages headed up by Gabriel Lazel, later founder of the University, came to them with the ability to seal away the daemon realm for good, on the sole condition that they not be feared or adulated as a result but simply be recognised and respected as equal inhabitants of the planet and negotiated with as the peaceful organisation that they were.

It's a similar idea, but sans the idea of daemons trying to genocide Earth's population; the established RP doesn't resemble a post-apocalyptic world in the slightest but is set only a couple of decades after the Sealing.

[Denim&Venöm 18,690]

1 minute ago, Duality said:

The daemon realm incursion wasn't an incursion of daemons, it was an incursion of the realm itself.

For an unknown but suspected to be natural reason, the daemon dimensions began bleeding through in their entirety into the Earth set of dimensions, which resulted in a lot of dangerous 'glitches' in reality and gave accessways into our universe for the realm's denizens - not many of whom were necessarily hostile, but the exact nature of the 'glitches' and of effectively all of the denizens is heavily classified with regards IC, since descriptions of breaks in our reality give hints as to how to potentially magically replicate breaks in our reality and the denizens of the daemon realm are extremely powerful and are thus not entities that anyone in charge wants random people trying to contact, regardless of how peaceful the denizens may be.

When the governments of the world became unable to deny the nature of what was going on any longer, a large group of mixed-race mages headed up by Gabriel Lazel, later founder of the University, came to them with the ability to seal away the daemon realm for good, on the sole condition that they not be feared or adulated as a result but simply be recognised and respected as equal inhabitants of the planet and negotiated with as the peaceful organisation that they were.

It's a similar idea, but sans the idea of daemons trying to genocide Earth's population; the established RP doesn't resemble a post-apocalyptic world in the slightest but is set only a couple of decades after the Sealing.

You see, I don't think that's enough. Reality glitching could do it, convincing the world of the supernatural. But then it gets classified. And apparently the only way the world knows is declassification from various governments. Governments who aren't exactly trustworthy, who don't hold the most public confidence, and who probably can't or won't go all out to show the world that magic is real. Some society of magicians with government endorsement isn't enough to change how the world sees reality. If anything, it seems more likely they'd double down on the confidentiality and that Salem is training these future mages and the few enchanted folks who pop up in total secret. Essentially Harry Potter meets Kingsman. With how things are currently presented, and us seeing few changes to the world outside, that makes more sense. 

And no, I wasn't saying post apocalyptic. The invasion would be more akin to a world war, the devastation limited to nations, maybe a continent, rather than the whole planet. But a war would very much get the planets attention, and mages becoming the saviors, say sealing up the hole in reality where the daemons emerged and turning the tide would be something historic and something that would make your everyday man, woman and child rethink the way they see the world.  

After all, what better reason to train the next generation of mages then to be ready in case it ever happens again?                             

[dragon4111 914]

@Denim&Venom

Or you know teaching the generations who have no control over potentially dangerous powers to have control.

[Duality 10,739]

3 minutes ago, Denim&Venom said:

You see, I don't think that's enough. Reality glitching could do it, convincing the world of the supernatural. But then it gets classified. And apparently the only way the world knows is declassification from various governments. Governments who aren't exactly trustworthy, who don't hold the most public confidence, and who probably can't or won't go all out to show the world that magic is real. Some society of magicians with government endorsement isn't enough to change how the world sees reality. If anything, it seems more likely they'd double down on the confidentiality and that Salem is training these future mages and the few enchanted folks who pop up in total secret. Essentially Harry Potter meets Kingsman. With how things are currently presented, and us seeing few changes to the world outside, that makes more sense. 

The majority of information regarding daemon sightings was classified, yes, since they were relatively rare and serious, but only the up-close information gathered by the people actually probing and testing the reality glitches was classified along with it (since the glitches were effectively impossible not to notice at their peak). Almost all the layman first-hand accounts and videos and media reports and so on regarding the glitches are still circulating. Glitch coverage escalated from urban legends to weekly sightings within about five years before the mages finally revealed themselves and sealed the realm away, and since it was a scant couple of decades ago, there are a lot of people and there is a lot of footage to attest to it.

Everyone knows a few people who saw the neighbour's cat jump off a windowsill and materialise on the roof of their house or who found the cheese that they'd bought yesterday in a near-fossilised state of decay or who even claim to have caught a glimpse of impossibility in the mirror out of the corner of their eye; everyone saw the home videos of people tossing a basketball through a stable spatial anomaly found in Manhattan or airwalking along the top of the massive anti-gravity field discovered in Tokyo or using an acceleration loop formed a few miles away from Stonehenge as a potato cannon; everyone knows it happened to the point where effectively nobody denies it and it is thus mundane.

The fact that it's been and gone and is now so embedded into history that only forty-plus-year-olds reminisce about means that most people don't really care about it enough any more to let it interfere with their day-to-day life. It helps that the vast majority of the bleed-through was mild and passive and the worldwide death toll over the whole half-decade or so was a mere couple of hundred, due almost solely to a few now-classified serious incidents.

34 minutes ago, Denim&Venom said:

And no, I wasn't saying post apocalyptic. The invasion would be more akin to a world war, the devastation limited to nations, maybe a continent, rather than the whole planet. But a war would very much get the planets attention, and mages becoming the saviors, say sealing up the hole in reality where the daemons emerged and turning the tide would be something historic and something that would make your everyday man, woman and child rethink the way they see the world.  

Mages still pulled a historic stunt by creating the Seal. It may not have been an act of heroism amidst carnage, but it was heavily covered live by worldwide media, the resultant pulse of energy was felt as a tangible tingle across the planet, and many particularly astute observers noted a sort of 'blur-and-refocus' sensation as the stability of reality was effectively reset. The whole Incursion ended up being considered in public opinion a one-off act of nature that science doesn't yet understand being headed off by a new race of people called 'mages' instead of anything like wizards and witches saving the world from demon creatures. One must recall that having Pelajae and humans working towards a modern coexistence for so long would make the earth somewhat more hospitable to the peculiar among its inhabitants, especially given the inherent variety even amongst Pelajae.

36 minutes ago, dragon4111 said:

@Denim&Venom

Or you know teaching the generations who have no control over potentially dangerous powers to have control.

^ This is definitely the primary reason behind the University. There had been accounts of rogue mages attacking people with their powers long before the Incursion, effectively all of which had since been classified as particularly informed governments began to have suspicions, but the mages coming into the open gave governments no further reason to classify what had been openly confirmed as true. All subsequent incidents were diplomatically handled with the aid of Lazel's group of mages, but there were enough subsequent incidents to prompt Lazel to start lobbying for his school within a couple of years.

[Denim&Venöm 18,690]

3 minutes ago, Duality said:

ne must recall that having Pelajae and humans working towards a modern coexistence for so long would make the earth somewhat more hospitable to the peculiar among its inhabitants, especially given the inherent variety even amongst Pelajae.

That's another thing. Should humans and pelijae be getting along so smoothly? Humans don't even get along smoothly with one another. Why would the multitude of differing pelijae races get along, let alone with the majority humans? 

 

So in general, is far as the world is concerned, a few glitches in space and time were solved by a new race of super beings. Am I getting the gist of all this?

[Duality 10,739]

37 minutes ago, Denim&Venom said:

That's another thing. Should humans and pelijae be getting along so smoothly? Humans don't even get along smoothly with one another. Why would the multitude of differing pelijae races get along, let alone with the majority humans?

I dunno; it might be a stretch to even equate our psychological profiles with the norm of the RP universe. It's been fairly well-established that mages are well outside the psychological norm of the 'verse (speculation being that magic might strain the psyche), but what normal people are like in-RP haven't been well-established yet. Could be that they're just a bit 'nicer' than us for whatever reason - everyone has spent so many millennia from the start of civilisation itself being very viscerally aware that there are other beings like them but nothing like them at all that they came to accept it a lot more fully in culture, society, and baseline psyche than we do here?

46 minutes ago, Denim&Venom said:

So in general, is far as the world is concerned, a few glitches in space and time were solved by a new race of super beings. Am I getting the gist of all this?

A lot of glitches that were intensifying very visibly over time and that the developed world was starting to get extremely concerned about, and mages, while quite powerful, are still far closer to normal people than Pelajae and humans are to each other.

Also, Lazel was brilliant at PR.

[Denim&Venöm 18,690]

1 minute ago, Duality said:

I dunno; it might be a stretch to even equate our psychological profiles with the norm of the RP universe. It's been fairly well-established that mages are well outside the psychological norm of the 'verse (speculation being that magic might strain the psyche), but what normal people are like in-RP haven't been well-established yet. Could be that they're just a bit 'nicer' than us for whatever reason - everyone has spent so many millennia from the start of civilisation itself being very viscerally aware that there are other beings like them but nothing like them at all that they came to accept it a lot more fully in culture, society, and baseline psyche than we do here?

A lot of glitches that were intensifying very visibly over time and that the developed world was starting to get extremely concerned about, and mages, while quite powerful, are still far closer to normal people than Pelajae and humans are to each other.

Also, Lazel was brilliant at PR.

I'm sorry but frankly, all of that sounds very boring and mundane. What's the investment? Where are the stakes? These powers sound more like mild inconveniences than life altering circumstances or threats to society. The world doesn't seem too plussed about the existence of gifted beings. Life probably won't change for the characters once they manage their so called powers. There doesn't seem to really be anything magical about the magic school RP. 

Heck, that whole battle with the plant bane now feels very out of place. 

[Duality 10,739]

20 minutes ago, Denim&Venom said:

I'm sorry but frankly, all of that sounds very boring and mundane. What's the investment? Where are the stakes? These powers sound more like mild inconveniences than life altering circumstances or threats to society. The world doesn't seem too plussed about the existence of gifted beings. Life probably won't change for the characters once they manage their so called powers. There doesn't seem to really be anything magical about the magic school RP. 

Heck, that whole battle with the plant bane now feels very out of place. 

I'm trying to strike a balance between people loving and embracing mages and everyone wanting to eradicate them from existence. Call the general vibe of the world 'serious and justified misgivings, tempered by apparent lack of any form of organised hostility from the mages and intimidation as regards their power'. I don't want anything close to mainstream racism between the humans and the Pelajae or between Pelajae subraces and for the purposes of the planned plot I want nobody to know IC whether daemons as a whole want to destroy Earth and nobody to want to risk it due to their extreme power and the actions of several that managed to get through during the Incursion. The world isn't battle-scarred and cratered from some near-apocalyptic event as per established lore showing absolutely no sign of that, but it has been soundly established that non-mages aren't exactly friendly-friendly with mages either. Mages did just enough in the Incursion to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that magic exists and exists within them and they fixed a problem severe enough to get governments signing off on relatively generous negotiation deals, but they didn't do enough to be lauded the world over as nigh-superheroes. The government set them up in their happy little magic island-school basically in exchange for them staying there and leaving everything alone except when needed to sort out rogue mages or things. Some people think they're up to something, others think that if they were up to something everyone would be dead already. The latter people are probably closer to the truth.

In short: nobody outright hates or wants to kill each other except for similar minorities of horrible people to those we get on this Earth, nobody knows what the deal with daemons is except people with security clearance, and the world has come to an uneasy acceptance of mages as long as they stay over there where they belong. Effectively all other historical lore I've constructed for the RP is artifice to lead to that particular present situation. Howzat?

[Denim&Venöm 18,690]

9 minutes ago, Duality said:

I'm trying to strike a balance between people loving and embracing mages and everyone wanting to eradicate them from existence. Call the general vibe of the world 'serious and justified misgivings, tempered by apparent lack of any form of organised hostility from the mages and intimidation as regards their power'. I don't want anything close to mainstream racism between the humans and the Pelajae or between Pelajae subraces and for the purposes of the planned plot I want nobody to know IC whether daemons as a whole want to destroy Earth and nobody to want to risk it due to their extreme power and the actions of several that managed to get through during the Incursion. The world isn't battle-scarred and cratered from some near-apocalyptic event as per established lore showing absolutely no sign of that, but it has been soundly established that non-mages aren't exactly friendly-friendly with mages either. Mages did just enough in the Incursion to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that magic exists and exists within them and they fixed a problem severe enough to get governments signing off on relatively generous negotiation deals, but they didn't do enough to be lauded the world over as nigh-superheroes. The government set them up in their happy little magic island-school basically in exchange for them staying there and leaving everything alone except when needed to sort out rogue mages or things. Some people think they're up to something, others think that if they were up to something everyone would be dead already. The latter people are probably closer to the truth.

In short: nobody outright hates or wants to kill each other except for similar minorities of horrible people to those we get on this Earth, nobody knows what the deal with daemons is except people with security clearance, and the world has come to an uneasy acceptance of mages as long as they stay over there where they belong. Effectively all other historical lore I've constructed for the RP is artifice to lead to that particular present situation. Howzat?

Frankly it sounds like the world outside and it's problems has been toned down to an extent where it will have little basis on the plot. People are rascist/ speciest/ magist, but not really enough to matter. Mages aren't worshiped or despised as much as modestly appreciated and mildly disdained.  Space and time distortion happened, but long enough ago to be a foot note. The government has embraced mages as the next big thing. But only if and when the situation demands it, otherwise they're a logistical nuisance. And anything really world shattering is classified. 

In short: Pretty much anything outside the school is irrelevant. 

[Duality 10,739]

10 minutes ago, Denim&Venom said:

Frankly it sounds like the world outside and it's problems has been toned down to an extent where it will have little basis on the plot. People are rascist/ speciest/ magist, but not really enough to matter. Mages aren't worshiped or despised as much as modestly appreciated and mildly disdained.  Space and time distortion happened, but long enough ago to be a foot note. The government has embraced mages as the next big thing. But only if and when the situation demands it, otherwise they're a logistical nuisance. And anything really world shattering is classified. 

In short: Pretty much anything outside the school is irrelevant. 

This is precisely the case.

Salem University is an extremely school-centric RP, as in the name and as advertised from the beginning, and as such its lore is specifically tailored to exclude the need to worry much about the big outdoors. Even the world-shattering plotlines are almost guaranteed not to involve the outside world until the aftermath.

If, however, in the natural course of things, the roleplay begins extending beyond the walls of the University, I'll repaint the apparent relative peace of the world as a fragile thing that could be shattered very easily - popular politicians who have it out for mages, government groups who want to harness their power, hives of scum and villainy and so forth -, but as it stands this is a rather navel-focussed RP, and enough has been established already to show that the world outside is not tattered shreds of hatred, nor has it been involved in earth-shattering warfare at least since the last World War.

Apologies for the lost worldbuilding opportunities; normally I'm one for fleshing out everything as much as I can, too, but here it's simply beyond the designed scope.

[dragon4111 914]

@Denim&Venom

-points to the title- Not trying to sound rude my friend but it says Salem university not magical world where things are FUBAR or SNAFUed .

@Duality