ooc OOC Deep Science 1x1 with Blitz Boom

[Blitz Boom 4,626]

@Illiad Easle

I'll give you some degree of god modding permission for the operation, in case it starts hurting. I think you know how Null would react anyway with needing my input on it, just in case.  Also, up to you whatever or not the pain meds will last through the entire thing. If not... Well, I hope you have a sock.

[Illiad Easle 3,139]

@Blitz Boom

Alright, here's what we've got in store for the story:

There's one more scene for Null's operation which takes place once she sleeps. She'll be visited in her mind by Silver Diamond, which was the entity that controlled Silver Tower, or the diamond that Void brought back from the facility. That diamond became the diamond needles that have been implanted in her. She is essentially a long series of runes which only work when magically powered, thus passing through Null's field did nothing, but once connected to her field are powered. She is the one controlling the wing, or rather turning Null's muscle movements into full wing movements. She has no soul, but is rather a personality construct of sorts, and only has the power to voice when Null is asleep, and will only do so when called upon.

Anyway, in her visit she'll bring the Consul's final gift: a whole slew of memories of flying from Selena, who was once part of Luna, this will give Null the muscle memory she needs to fly, and with enough practice she'll have the memory training to pull off advanced flight maneuvers.

 

That's the final scene for her surgery. We then come up on a break of sorts, there's not much for them to do until Null is healed, Void will be back to full strength in a few days, but it will be two weeks until Null is cleared to try flying again. I propose that after we do the final scene in the surgery we can skip forward to two weeks later. You'll make a post detailing a list of things they'd do and I'll give a basic description of what went on, or we can play out a few scenes if they strike us as particularly interesting.

Once the two weeks have passed she'll start her physical therapy, which should go well given the memories she's been given.

Only then can we get to the next scene I've planned: Null going after their father, Grey Mane. He's taken up residence in Las Pegasus, and I've generated quite the Mr. House vibe for him, I'm looking forward to that.

What happens between that scene and this next scene is up to you.

[Blitz Boom 4,626]

@Illiad Easle

Sounds really good mate. I wonder though if Nine is going to have some choice words when Silver comes around though, seeing as he's still stuck in there too. Might be he have something to say about the extra, albeit soulless company added to the mixture.

Anyway, I'm in favor of the time skip, and I can add to the post after that what they have done in the time away, which would mostly be them talking, and Null getting to terms with the situation. Also  Void fixing up a temporary shop for glass work, and making a new eye.

Null having a chat with her family about the potential deal with Vengeance is something that should probably be dealt with too in that time. Could be off screen, and they're still talking it through, as it's a rather big deal. It'd weigh on her mind.

Something to mention about the current post. I had some trouble getting it out, but baseline is that the only response I could think of for Null's response wouldn't be overt joy. It just made more sense for me that she wouldn't be able to believe ehat were going on, and actually cope with something like this actually happening to her. This long, it would seem like a dream she hunted, but never actually thought she'd get.

Anyway  got a little messy, so hope it went through. Post really didn't want to get out.

Also, thanks for the comment about the cupholder remark. I dunno why, but for some reason, I just see Null as being more sarcastic the less angry she gets.

[Illiad Easle 3,139]

@Blitz Boom

And there we go, off to the transition and setting up the next scene.

After her first flight she'll be talked to by Illiad about making her potential deal with Vengeance official, which I think would lead into her discussion with her parents if she decides to tell them, she could easily say she's been selected by the Consul for some special mission.

Provided she accepts, and even if she doesn't, Illiad will reveal that he's discovered where their father, Grey Mane, is.

[Randimaxis 8,652]

I... think you made a mistake, Illiad.  *chuckle*

[Illiad Easle 3,139]

Sorry about that, tagged the wrong person, I fixed it now. 

[Blitz Boom 4,626]

@Illiad Easle

Sorry for the short reply, but been a really busy day, so it were all I had the time to offer.

[Blitz Boom 4,626]

@Illiad Easle

Had to cover a double shift at work today, and still not done for tonight, so I apologize for the post tonight not being more than a minor setup. I'm just drained.

[Blitz Boom 4,626]

@Illiad Easle

I actually forgot about the package, sorry.   Had a real busy day so didn't get to writing until the end and it slipped my mind. I'll include it in the next part.

[Blitz Boom 4,626]

@Illiad Easle

I did not forget the second part, by the way. Just the way you wrote things, I couldn't see Null reacting in any other way than she currently did, so she ain't going anywhere voluntarily for the time being.

[Illiad Easle 3,139]

@Blitz Boom

No worries, her stopping him allows for some better lore reveal anyway, lets me express why his tone shifted so drastically.

[Illiad Easle 3,139]

@Blitz Boom

Okay, Null received four gifts of Vengeance, and as such has the following abilities:

The Eye:

Allows her to see who needs to be struck by vengeance, what degree, and where they've been. She'll be able to see trails if she focuses hard enough, allowing her to more easily find those who are her targets. At first she'll need to close both eyes, but as she gets used to it she'll be able to do it by closing just her dominant eye.

The Cloak:

Protects from all attacks done by her targets, she won't feel pain from strikes or take lasting damage. Combined with the scarf she will be unnoticeable to all those who are not her targets. (IE people will see her, but won't take notice of her. She'll be considered wholly unremarkable to passers by.)

The Scarf:

Activates the cloak's second ability as described, allows her to move silently and speak such that only her targets can hear her.

The Wings:

Her wings are powered by vengeance, allowing her to perform great feats of acrobatics when fighting targets as well as protecting them from damage and injury. Combined with the eye she'll be more easily guided towards her targets while in flight.

The middle two abilities are disabled when they aren't worn, and can be disabled by Nine even while worn, becoming an ordinary cloak and scarf while disabled. If she loses the cloak or scarf any cloak or scarf can then be imbued with the same power. For instance she can decide to be normally visible if she likes, and the cloak reverts to a standard brown color as opposed to the black it normally is.

The first ability can be disabled by Nine, for instance she doesn't always want to see who needs what done to them.

The final ability is just a boost in strength and energy while flying when the eye is not active, the boost is variable according to the strength of her vengeance towards whoever her target is at the moment, when not going against anyone the boost is negligible.

 

If any of that is unclear let me know, and be sure to have Null ask about it.

[Illiad Easle 3,139]

@Blitz Boom

One last thing before Null goes to fight her father:

You remember that coast guard you told me about? Well, now that the spawn are mostly gone, she and those who fled with her are going to start making their way back up and see if they can't rebuild the city they left from. On the way, I was thinking the coast guard herself would stop by, remembering the sisters and being told that they were in the city when she meets with the Consul right now if you're agreeable to it. She can make her appearance starting in your next post.

[Blitz Boom 4,626]

@Illiad Easle

Alright by me, but need to put a few things out there.

1. Do you want me to control her? I guess that is the intention, but it might also not be, hence why i ask before I get confused on things and mess it up royally.

...Actually, rereading it, you said starting in MY next post. Scratch this question, I think I got it. xD

2. She's not the captain, but the Coastal Guard General. At least that were her title at the time. Way I had it when I made her, were that it were easier having a rank above the captains in the varied guards, rather than trying to RP Shining Armor at times, hence the General rank. I can just make it captain and ignore that part if it is though. Your call.

3. So she's there to meet the Consul, yes? Just wanna know if he knows she's on her way, or if this is a surprise visit sort of thing.

As for rebuilding, she won't accept to live long from the sea if ahe can help it, and Troy is far as I know, a desert place. As such, in her plans to return and rebuild as you say, is the idea to get some connections to the town and the de facto leader of the country so they can assist one another, or to actually settle in the town itself? Because the later would at best happen temporarily, out of necessity, whilst the former would make more sense to me.

Not just because of her character, but since they mingled with mercenaries who might not be seen too favourably by the regular law, they might not be too thrilled living close to a royal. Doubly so when that one is an avatar of Vengeance, and I imagine that some mercenaries might have a few outstanding karmic debts.

If I'm given more free reigns to suggest things here, I'd say that she intents to have Shark bay rebuild, yet do so at the closest ocean area suitable for a town and sea life to Troy, even if that's quite a few miles away. Far as she knows after all, Equestria is gone, and even if the spawns gets taken care of, there's no longer a country to protect. Which leaves her with a choice: Rebuild and have the old Shark Bay function as a more self sustained town for former Equestrians, and have the guard remade as town protectors, or change location entirely, and offer to help Troy like she once did Equestria. Something which would in time, likely help a whole lot more than keeping things local.

Due to their countries shared history, it's not going to be an easy one to decide though. Which could be a larger reason to come and see the Consul: She'd want to talk it through with him directly, and see if they couldn't bury the old hatchet and work together for a change. Though if from afar or as part of the same country, she would want deals made for the mercenaries to ensure that they wouldn't get into a real bad situation soon as they showed themselves.

4. To ensure you have something to do during the exchange with her and the sisters, perhaps have her with an escort that you controlled for at least until the Consul entered the picture? Either one of the few surviving original guards from any of the three branches, a newer recruit from the other survivors they got to South Point, or one of the mercenaries that works with her. Or hay, you put it previously how there's some of the Troy defenders who carried Equestrian armor pieces, so that must mean there's a few of the guards who works for Troy now, yes? You could easily have one of them following her around, who ran into her/were assigned to her, and work from that. Just a thought anyway.

5. Thanks for the comment about the side stories.  I usually put them in to put some meat on the bones, so to speak, though I do like how it adds some story here and there toothat might not have anything to do with the main plot, but gives a sort of look into things happening that doesn't have to directly involve the main cast. Plus it's fun.

[Illiad Easle 3,139]

@Blitz Boom

2. I was fuzzy on the details, you put whatever's true

3. They're going from South Port to North Port, which were the two major trading hubs across Eternity's Sea. She's coming to see the Consul because North Port would rely on Trojan goods to trade to the Cervidian continent in order to fully function, plus Troy could supply materials and workers in order to rebuild the port and the roads to the port. So she's not staying in Troy, just passing through to get Troy's help in their efforts to rebuild. I agree that they won't go all the way to Equestria yet, perhaps in a few decades time they may continue northward.

Any mercenary who works for Troy can find their karmic debts quickly repaid, one of the ways to lower your karmic debt is through service to the community after all, and they did a lot of that when they volunteered to move refugees to Cervidas during the Discord incident, many of them are also war veterans from the Summer war as well.

4. She can be accompanied by one of the ex-Equestrian guards. I think a number of them will be joining her in going to and rebuilding North Port as many of them only fell in with Troy out of a lack of leadership and as such fall back in line with their newly discovered general.

5. do keep it up!

[Blitz Boom 4,626]

@Illiad Easle

Sorry if the post seems a bit rushed at the end, but it was, as I were three minutes away from having to go to work. Didn't trust the PC would save the post, so got this out. Might work better this way though, to give you a shot of reacting to things before they go on.

Hope the backstory of the Coastal Guard helps too. What took most of my time, but it seemed important to explain when I started off things, and I at least think it got through alright.

Though as a foot note, the competition haven't happened since the crisis. Ain't enough of them to make sense to go that route, and they need their energy for more important things.

[Illiad Easle 3,139]

@Blitz Boom

I see, this fits nicely in the world I imagined.

I don't know how old you'd like the Ocean Coalition to be, but it sounds like they might have started as a protective measure against pirates in Eternity's Sea once trade between Cervidas and Equestria began, culminating in the construction of Eternity's bridge. Later expansion surrounding Abaddon's fury towards the Quiet Sea to extend protection to North and South port.

When Equestria officially adopted the Ocean Coalition to be part of their guard would likely have caused a schism, especially since not all of the members of the coalition would be Equestrian, the division becoming the Coast Guard in the north part of Eternity's Sea, and the mercenaries working the Abaddon routes in the middle/south portion.

Essentially, Equestria taking the Ocean Coalition caused the rise of the mercenaries, which leads to the one and only naval battle in the Summer War. The Mercenaries were going to transport Trojan and Griffon troops to Cervidas, but the Equestrian Coast Guard enacted a blockade, preventing any of the mercenary ships from leaving North Port. That is, until Troy brought out their air ships, a collection of conventional and experimental vehicles that rained fire and artillery down on the Coast Guard blockade, forcing them to retreat and allow the mercenaries through. Not that it mattered as Troy could then transport their troops via the air.

I bring that up because Tidal Wave would have been involved in that battle, and should we have a scene where the sister see her interact with the Consul, or her see one of the Trojan airships, she could comment on that.

Further, her forming a new Ocean Coalition would be her mending the divide that had previously existed between the mercenaries and the Coast Guard.

Spoiler

Troy takes up the whole area labeled Mild West, more at it's height, maybe one day I'll make the real maps.

[Blitz Boom 4,626]

@Illiad Easle

Actually, I had the Ocean Coalition to be the new name that the Mercenaries and various members of the scattered Equestrian guard branches unite under. Hence, it'd be as old as their arrangement in North Point. 

That being said, I do like your idea that they are united under an old banner again, so heck, I'd say we go for that idea.  It fits both of our idea without having to fiddle with things in any sense, so why not, right?

As for whatever or not Tidal Wave were part of that battle... It's a little troubling to really see it happen. She's only in her late twenties, and would realistically, only have been in uniform then for the past ten-eleven years or so.

If we want to make it fit though, we could say that the Summer Wars could have taken place around six years before the crisis, which would put it as nine years ago in current time. Back then, she would have been nothing more than a nameless private, doing her duty and following orders from a general that at the time, were less than thrilled about their comrades of old, and took the orders to stop them from providing help to the Trojan forces far further than intended, which is where the siege would come into the picture.

I swing it like this so that, to spin a few things in that could help with the flow. One being that what the old general thought would be his victorious mark on their history, would be a crushing defeat and an abuse of power that would leave him and several of his closest allies thrown out of the Coastal Guard in disgrace, leaving several spots at the headquarters needing to be filled. When the next general would take over and run a tight ship that did not involve cooperation with their former allies, yet still a complete adherence to their laws, despite what orders they might get from further up, she'd then appoint others of the lower ranks to take higher positions, and then, some low ranks such as Sergeants would be up for grabs. One who might get such a spot, could be a certain mare who had shown good judgement in the siege, as well as leadership, by leading several groups of injured Coastal Guards safely out of the assaulted area, after their commanding officer had gone down, rather than try a feeble counter-attack like their previous leadership would have likely ordered out of stubbornness. This would be her first step towards gaining a higher rank, which would in time allow her to compete for the position of General.

It could also give her a small bit of leniency with the mercenaries, if any of them had seen her order them to ignore their forces and get out of there, no matter how easy of a shot they might have of taking some down with them. Potentially she would've even smacked one on the side of his thick skull with her trident (Coastal Guard standard weapon) for trying to assault one of them during the retreat, rather than help protect the injured.

As for the current leadership, I imagine that it were at least originally a complete fifty/fifty split with the leader of the mercenaries, to show unity, rather than absorbing one part. I will let it be up to you if it is still like that, or if her position as the last general of Equestria, meant that eventually, most started just defaulting to her, and the mercenary leader is more a second in command these days.

P.S. (edit)

Reading the post, are you saying that the Consul and her already met? Figured they were about to do so soon, but it's alright if you have other plans. Just wanna make sure before I mess up the timeline you set forth. I can always just have a bit of a flashback scene with her mentally to cover a few things without much of an issue.

Edited April 12, 2020 by Blitz Boom

[Illiad Easle 3,139]

@Blitz Boom

Hmm, unfortunately there's a few hard set timeline restrictions. The Summer war must occur no more than two years prior to the Crisis as Illiad needs to still be the Consul when the crisis occurs, and he only becomes Consul when Consul Hooves resigns at the conclusion of the Summer war.

Further, if the Summer war were any earlier, Null and Void would have known about it, or would have been cryo-ed before, meaning they were cryo-ed before nightmare moon returned.

Which I think doesn't exactly work.

The timeline of events in my world have one year from NMM to Discord, one from Discord to Chrysalis, then one from Chrysalis to the Summer War as said war replaces Tirek in the timeline. Then no more than two years to the crisis, being no more than five years after NMM.

As a sort of compromise, perhaps Tidal wasn't in charge of the blockade, but rather in charge of transporting Equestrian troops across the north of Eternity's Sea to Cervidas, and this upstart Captain was looking for the success of the blockade to to boost their career so they could become general, perhaps they were jealous of Tidal's recent promotion, feeling cheated out of what they thought was what they deserved.

Remember that this is an alternate ending to the world, so some events have played out differently than they do in the root universe.

I had her already meet the Consul, that's how she learned that Null and Void were not only alive but in the city and responsible for closing the gates. We can say that they only met briefly and have yet to have their full meeting.

[Blitz Boom 4,626]

@Illiad Easle

Alright, so insubordination, during what would've been her first year in charge after the competition. I can work with that just as easily, and him and his croonies would still have been thrown out in disgrace. If you need some marauders or turncoats to Discord's side, you can use them at some point for some familiarity's sake.  

I'll figure something out when the time comes for my post tomorrow. Usually like... 90% of what I write in is just pulled straight out of my head at the time of writing, which is where the side story filler mostly comes from.  Random background isn't gonna be hard. I just gotta keep her personality in mind, and the rest tends to come from there.

As for the meeting, we'll see what I come up with, but I do like the idea of it being mostly a beginner meeting, with the Consul being busy perhaps, and well... You mentioned some of the former Equestrian guards going to her, yes? Could well be that she had to cut it short to go deal with that as well, and they just got a minor Introduction meeting done before they had to reschedule for a few hours later or so. Could well be why the Consul told her of Null and Void's location too, so that she could go see them.

As for when to put the time for it... About a half hour or so before Null came to see him? An hour, maybe? He'd probably be preparing for her visit, so that could account for him having some other things to prepare for, and a potential reason for wanting to push the meeting until after she had been there.

[Blitz Boom 4,626]

@Illiad Easle

Lemme know if this ain't good. Had a tough time getting it out, due to things going in in real life, so just correct me in here if I messed something up, and I'll fix it.

[Illiad Easle 3,139]

@Blitz Boom

No obvious issues that I can see, no worries.

[Blitz Boom 4,626]

@Illiad Easle

Nothing related to things currently going on in the story, though it does have something to do with what have been discussed at an earlier point. Consider it me just setting some things up that may have some influence later on. Especially if Null and/or Void eventually moves out of Troy, on their karmic paths.  Might end up being nothing though. We'll see. ^^

...Also I ran out of ideas on what to put in as filler and figured *why not?*  

Edited May 3, 2020 by Blitz Boom

[Blitz Boom 4,626]

@Illiad Easle

Just mentioning, that currently, Tidal does not know about the whole *Some Equestrians are in limbo* thing, nor the eventual return of the princesses. Have fun breaking that to her at some point, or let her go on in blissful ignorance.

[Blitz Boom 4,626]

@Illiad Easle

I'll finish Null's part in the next post, then set her up as a *She were doing this until the day would arrive* sort of thing. Adding in that Void would be bringing a request to the Consul's place, asking if she might have a chat one of the days. They could do so just before Null left if it were, so that she could see her parents again before going off to do the murdering.