Well. You could, for example, work a fully operating but winding down Glorious operation into the story. Because of its remoteness from where the GMG operate today and where the final battle was fought, it could have been the "secured" site for top level meetings.

I assumed that it wasn't just the Kusari but that both Bretonia and Liberty were cooperatively neutral in the conflict. After all, B and L have the higher h-fuel costs on average and they may have felt that it would be better for a private business to be the primary source of fuel than a rival House.

So anyway, the documents were in transit from the Glorious to GMG HQ in Honshu.

Now let's see, what would those documents reveal..........?

How about this:

From all the bar talk, you usually get the story of the Kruger and Daumann rivalry AND who started it but couldn't profiteer from it as well as the rival. So let's say that the Bundschuh have among its leadership the Kruger executives who got fired when Daumann ouflanked them to pick up the military contracting for supplying and equipping the Imperial Fleet in the 80. The Bundschuh oppose the 80 war in principle and the Kruger men are using that as cover to devise a way to get even with Daumann.

Let's say, also, that Daumann, in an effort to get as much shipbuilding material as cheaply as possible have resorted to a massive industrial scale scavenging which has made severe inroads into the Junkers' trade.

What if the documentation reveals that, under the protection of the Bundschuh, those ex-Kruger guys arrange for the Junkers to send word through the Hogosha to the GMG on key Imperial Fleet weaknesses in terms of armor, armament and ship capabilities. They could have stolen top-secret shield, ship and weapon designs from Daumann engineering labs and sold them to the GMG through the middle men. Let's say that the standard Rh shield for the big fleet heading for the showdown was changed from molecular to positronic. Let's say the GMG got wind of it and switched weapons from a neutron gun (which technology they sold to the Corsairs) to its later to become famous photon gun, a radical improvement on the Kusari source technology, in response.

You think that'll work? Oh yeah. We could sprinkle some clues in those documents about the GMG Merc hoard as well with more vague mention of Trent's Dad's successful ventures.

Edited by - Indy11 on 07-12-2003 04:46:45

Wow, you really thought this through, haven't you

Ok lemme see if I get this straight:

Some ex-Kruger employees join up with the Bundschuh.
The Bundschuh oppose the war and the ex-K workers use it as an excuse to attack Daumann.

Bundschuh leaked info through the Junkers --> Hogosha to the GMG about the Rh militairy, wich is in the documents.

One problem, Junkers and Hogosha are enemies... So maybe we can loose the Hogosha link.

So what's the Merc's job in the 80's...Sabotage? Covert ops? I think so.

Lets say, for T's dad and his buddies, that they raided a Rh transport wich carried Niobium from Tau ## through B-space and through the Omega's to Leipzig. Lets say that they were ordered to bring back the loot to a GMG base.
Lets say T's dad with his buddies, hides the loot somewhere, probably in one of the omega's and report back to tell the GMG that there was no loot.

Later, one of the Mercs sells out his buddies and tell's the GMG about the hidden Niobium. The GMG then set up a trap for T's dad and his buddies.

That would make the ally the enemy aswell:

The Junkers, ordered by Daumann, attack the transport in order to retrieve the documents. T's mom gets killed although she wasn't really the prime target. The documents were aboard a GMG mercs fighter.

The GMG merc who's helping T could verywell be the man who betrayed T's dad and his buddies!. Wouldn't that be awesome, to be helped by the guy who was responsible for the death of his dad.
Only, they both don't know that yet.

Ooh, I like it even more now

It's better to chase a rabbit then to catch a hare...

I'm confused like gromit, are you?

(I'm also to lazy to find the little sign thing)

@WLB Come on in. The waters fine!

@Nick
Why Hogosha

Well the Hogosha fill the functional void in Kusari space that the Junkers fill elsewhere. I don't know that you can say they hate each other to the point of open conflict. I see it more of friction lines. Anyway, throughout the sector, wherever
the scavenging/smuggling function is being carried out, it is inevitable that Hogosha dn Junkers cross paths if not meet.

GMG Mercs Role.

Since GMG are not a House, they don't have conscription available to man their fleets, so they gotta have Mercs. GMG Mercs are pulled from all parts of the Sector, even Rheinland if the Rheinlander is willing. They are supposed to be GMG frontline pilots and transporter pilots. Whatever needs to be done.... so, yeah, I guess covert ops too.

T's Dad.

I don't know, call me a sentimentalist but I don't like the idea of T's Dad being even a tiny bit dishonest. Let's say, instead, that the haul of niobium he captured is really huge and his reward even at 1% is huge, equal to 1MM credits.

Travel Line

Have you thought about the space that needs to be travelled from mission to mission?

Edited by - Indy11 on 07-12-2003 23:33:55

Hogosha:
I kinda figured they hated eachother. Anyway, I seem to remember a rumor that Hogosha just dont like Junkers in Kusari. That wouldn't rule out coöperation when there are benefits for both sides. They are still not very good friends tho, I think.

Mercs role:
I thought GMG had pilots of their own and hired mercs to fill in the gaps.
A complete merc fleet wouldn't that be to expensive? Looking at the scrapyard in S-13 there must have been a massive fleet to be conquered. A bunch of mercs couldn't pull that off imho.

T's dad:
I'm ok with that

Travel line:
No, I haven't given it anymore thought than what we discussed above.

Mission 1 Leeds system: Outside Planet Leeds, helping out transport under attack, resqueing pilot, go back to Planet Leeds.

mission 2 Leeds system: From Planet Leeds to LD-14, to Holman in Tau31. (we can make this Glorius station in Dublin. This keeps the story away from Kusari, where at the time they have nothing to do)

ok, that's where T and the Merc capture the Junker. What does the Junker tell them. Something about the attack on the transport perhaps? Getting late. If I have time I'll give it more thought.

It's better to chase a rabbit then to catch a hare...

@Indy & Nickless, now you're starting to get a taste of the detail it takes to write a story. Now keeping it all straight is the hard part.

@WLB, I am providing a link to page 3 of the signatures thread. There you will find almost all the Gromitized pics in my post. And I better see you with a "I'm in a play by Sir Spectre, are you?"

Sir Spectre

@SnS
It is a lot of sweat. Never thought it wouldn't be though.

@Nick

GMG
Well, I don't know. Yes. They have their own pilots but I don't think that they'd have as many as the Imperial Fleet... so they'd need mercs to supplement.

Merc fleet? Yeah you're right, probably more like a Merc strike force if that big.

Mission Travel

Someone on SnS' Prequel thread protested that T should not be travelling around at all because that would make the "unknown" systems quality of FL a contradiction.
That kind of stumped me.

But here's a thought. The condition that T finds himself in FL is based upon having lost his ship and fortune. If you assume that T's neural net is backed up on his ship then all his star charts are gone so the Sector, for him, in FL is a big unknown. This could be even more true if, in our approach, T does not go anywhere that the FL story took him EXCEPT of course, for the Bretonia Systtems.

To take this approach though, puts the Tau 31 mission into doubt. Any thoughts?

Anyway, I'm going to have to slow down on these posts. Work week begins again.
I am enjoying this exchange of ideas with you Nick. Hope we can keep this going.

Edited by - Indy11 on 08-12-2003 04:04:52

The navmap issue is very simple to explain. T has his maps on his personal datapad and on his ships backup. both are destroyed on FP7 It's that easy.

Storyline so far.

Goodguy - T (Hero), GMG
Badguy - Junkers (BH?), Daumann, ???
Goal - ??? (what in the world do Daumann want?)
Reason - ??? (Why do they want it?)

Goal: We have the documents, but what do they wanna do with them? Destroy them? That would be a rather short story. so, there has to be more. Getting even with the GMG for what they did during the 80's?

Reason: I think the documents are part of something bigger. Maybe Daumann wants to take over GMG bussiness and try to blackmail them (<-- Stupid? No?)
Or perhaps we're looking at the wrong direction. Perhaps it's got nothing to do with the 80's.
Daumann makes weapons too right? What if they are using the 80's as an excuse to test out new weapons?
I'm sure there are more possibilities, but I can't think of any right now.

We do have a conflict (already? we haven't even started yet )
Junkers, who do they work for? Daumann? (present) or Bundschuh? (80's)
We could change Junkers to BH? In the story I mean. So the enemy would be BH and Daumann.
Also handy because BH are in like every system and Junkers aren't. So wich ever way we wanna go is fine.

Damn, this does kinda suck. With a normal story you start with a clean slate, so you can kinda set your own universe. That's the great thing about Sci-Fi.
This time we have to make it fit right into the FL universe, wich is harder than I thought. But I'm sure we can get something out of this.

Maybe if others have any sugestions and want to join in? *hint, hint*

It's better to chase a rabbit then to catch a hare...

@Nick

>>>Documents' value:

Documents are not damaging to the GMG as much as terribly damaging to those factions that are supposed to be aligned or at least cooperatively neutral with Rheinland and ended up being part of the cause of the disaster to the disaster. So those documents are very valuable to the GMG for, as you say, blackmailing purposes.

>>>How Documents Affect and Define the Enemy Factions:

>For Junkers, it would jeopardize their contract with Helgoland Station to clean up the debris field by revealing their complicity in what made the debris field in the first place.

For Bundschuh, it would embarrass them and seriously undermine their cause for having given safe haven (although unwittingly) to heinous traitors of Rheinland.

>For Hogosha, it would underscore their cooperation with GMG (for a price) when their primary allegiances are supposed to be with Samura, quasi-officially, and the Corsairs, super-secretly <artifacts trade +?>. (My understanding is that GMG are very far from being the darlings of the Edo Shogunate and are antagonistic to the government and Samura and, of course, the Corsairs).

>For Mollies, they are not really vested in gas mining in FL but they are against BMM and BMM could have "ceded" gas mining rights to the GMG, thus depriving BMM miners of a lucrative trade. So, using that "enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic, Mollies could have agreed to help the others to put the screws on the GMG, destroy or neutralize the Glorious and drive them out of Dublin and the rest of Bretonia space.

>For Kruger, basically their desire to not be linked to ANY betrayal of Rheinland, even if by ex-Kruger types... Besides, it is not clear in the record whether these guys were "fired" or planted in the Bundschuh. Also, their desire not to let it be proved that they had instigated The 80 in the first place and then were the source of the critical instruments of Rheinland's defeat.

>For Daumann, likewise, they don't want it proved how they egged the Imperial government into war and how they ruthlessly profited from it.

>>>Document Goals - Options, Consequences:
Get them into GMG HQ base in Honshu, Destroy them or maybe even Sell them to highest bidder.

>>>Rewards:
> Get them to GMG HQ - Experiemntal Falcon ("Eagle" with 6 Jade Class 10 guns and 250K credits.
> Destroy them - BW Dromedary with Angelito Mk III guns and Angelito Mk 1 turrets and a full cargo load of alien artifacts
> Don't yet know how to work out an auction.

>>>Friends of T.

For the most part, all the other factions, companies or Houses are varying degrees of neutral from cooperatively neutral like the Blood Dragons (again....I know but it can't be helped... GMG trained them.. but they are not active participants as in FL) completely neutral like the Zoners .... need to work out more of these relationships.

Allies of T are the sons of the GMG Merc vets in Tobias' squadron. They take the place of the LSF and travel with him so T has a cohort this time and not just a Juni-type partner ( I don't know what to call them. How about the Leeds Cadets for now?) And a small cadre within the Bundschuh who want to get to the truth of what happened in the 80.

I think all the House Police and Navies also are neutral like the Zoners except that the Rheinland Navy and Police are off to the pink side of the hash mark.

>>>Travel

I think that, after Tau 31, they need to travel in the South, through the Omega systems, Frankfurt, Dresden and the Sigmas. Let's say that, in Tau 31, the Hogosha engineer a complete blockade with the help of Samura (unwitting dupes of the Hogosha for a change) and Mollies with assistance from IMG allies of Mollies.

>>>Starting Weps
I think you're right. Class 4 weps to start is too rich.