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PLOTS WITHIN EXSILIUM
Here is a mostly complete record of the in-game plots so far! It will be updated as we go along, and it may be assumed that all information here can be found by asking around the city, fellow Transports, or Initiative employees (unless it's specifically marked as not being generally known!).
| It is the year 3313. In a totalitarian dystopia, your characters are transported into the island community of Exsilium by use of a machine that was commissioned in secret by the Royal Family. Exsilium is inhabited by what was once the Royal Family and their band of now-imprisoned followers, dissenters against the government, displaced immediately following an uprising and failed revolt against a growing governmental entity. They are now known as the Initiative. The government is now all-seeing, and deeply militarized; rulers of the United Earth. Characters are brought into what was once Britain, and they are given a unique weapon upon their arrival that grows and evolves with them. This weapon travels with them, grows with them, and adapts to that character’s weaknesses in a way to help them compete with the trials they will face both in the past and their present time. Characters are trained, daily, in battalions in the Initiative Hold. Whether they be fighters or scholars, intellectuals or brutes, characters will be militarized in the interest of the Initiative and a use will be made for them. Not all of them will be made to fight, but all of them will be paid and made to assist, ideally, with the Initiative's plans. The Exsilium Initiative’s ultimate goal is to change the outcome of their present time and usurp the existing totalitarian government by making calculated changes to the events of the past. Namely, by manipulating the outcome of many past wars and political conflicts. These begin in ancient history, spanning the modern history that we know, and even exceeding into our future between 2012 and 3313. To do this, they have mapped a massive mathematical outline of each major and even minor event that had any influence on their current time and have determined a starting point using that outlined map. With the same machine used to transport characters into Exsilium, those characters will be outfitted appropriately and sent back into periods of time. The Initiative brings characters into their land of exiles and equips them with their sentient weapon. They train them, group them into battalions and they send them on “missions” to particular points in their history with a goal in mind -- alter that event in the Initiative’s favor. Characters will be sent to wars and conflicts all across history and when they return to their dystopian present, they will notice subtle differences in their everyday lives. The more that they influence their history, the larger these differences become, until, finally, the government is weakened to the point where the Exsilium Initiative will be capable of successfully instigating another grand resistance: the Final Resistance. |
GAME BEGINS. Noting a strange influx of population in their penal colony, the United Earth sends in top-notch soldiers called the Masked for a brief occupation. Their orders are to implant a chip in every person they find there, including Transports. After they’ve gone, the Initiative removes and tampers with all chips, to report back false information. It’s stated in an Initiative broadcast the United Earth will run out of resources within a few decades, and so has begun to enter worlds to destroy them and steal their resources instead. A mission sends Transports back to Assyria, to protect a small town from Roman invasion. In an effort to raise hostilities against the United Earth, an Initiative branch under orders of Colonel Landry drugs water and food supplies to make Transports dream very vividly pro-Initiative and anti-United Earth propaganda. Those still chipped by the Masked even hallucinate United Earth soldiers during their waking hours. This is exposed on the Network by Jericho (of Teen Titans Animated), and Landry is later assassinated by Osprey (original character) in a broadcast to the Network. Temporal Turbulence: As an unanticipated effect from the Assyrian mission, all citizens of Exsilium begin suffering time displacement symptoms. Panic begins to spread, up to and including rioting in the streets. Those Transports well enough must go back in time to prevent a figure important to the history of time travel from being killed. The Transporter is suffering just as much, and malfunctions and splits the Transport group into 4 smaller groups, sending each one to a different time. Only one group makes it to the correct time, saves the writer, and balances time again. The other three groups enjoy things like dinosaurs, Woodstock in ‘69, futuristic war-torn Australia, and viking battles. Once activities by those displaced groups are complete, Exsilium’s city structure changes and new buildings are found to be part of the landscape, while others that were previously in ruins are found to be in better shape than before. The Initiative is developing a Virtual Reality technology to help with training, but it’s released too early by an unknown agent. It captures the minds of all Transports for three days, and using scenes created from their own minds, forces them to fight aggressive versions of people from their memories. Somewhere within the many different scenes is a man being held prisoner by the Initiative. After the Transports are released, the VR project goes on the backburner, as all employees are hesitant to try anything so disastrous again. The scientist that had been in charge of it is banned from Network use. A mission is sent back to a small Mediterranean island in 1802, during the First Barbary War. They ambush and commandeer a pirate ship, redirecting it and its cargo to a small nearby island. In late September, the prisoner met within the VR escapes, and the United Earth is alerted to Transport presence. The Masked invade, while bombs begin to fall all throughout Exsilium, sparing only the Hold. All characters and civilians are ushered to the underground catacombs below the city for a week to wait out the destruction, leaving the United Earth to believe they’d eliminated most life in Exsilium. It is revealed that the Masked are engineered clones. It is learned by the capture and telepathic interrogation of a cabinet member of the United Earth presidency that the United Earth President is an AI. This is kept a secret from the United Earth populace, and only high ranking officials — and now Exsilium — know about it. “Salt the Earth” reprisal mission: Transports are sent to Russia, year 1223, into land currently occupied by the Golden Horde. The must force the army’s retreat, and then contaminate the ground with a compound designed by the Initiative. Harmless to humans and animals, it will prevent the growth of plant life for centuries. Transports return in late October to discover the Hold is almost entirely deserted, and the island has been overrun with mutated monsters, gathered from the wastelands and dropped here by the United Earth. The population is reduced to 10% of what it was, the Transporter is damaged, and the Initiative scientists claim that although the mission had been a success, something had been dropped and left behind, which, found many centuries later, aroused the United Earth’s ire and suspicion again. Transports must fight their way through the creatures, fix the machine, and gather the dropped evidence. This is a success, and Exsilium is set back to monster-free normal. Sollux Captor (of Homestuck) telepathically throws rocks at the United Earth capitol, Vandrova, alerting them to the presence of resistance that they’d previously thought had been wiped out with the bombing. In order to get the Transports out of harm’s way, the Initiative mobilizes a mass mission to Black Rock, New Mexico (circa 1884), and instructs them to sway votes for mayor. Transports remain in Black Rock for seven days, see elected Gerald “Moony” Jackson (a man known for being obsessed with “life among the stars”—after winning the vote and becoming a beloved Mayor, he goes onto inspire a legacy of space-enthusiasm in the USA, who then create a shortly-abandoned moonbase in the 2200s) as desired by the Initiative, and return to find that the Masked had investigated, found nothing, and corrupted the Transporter signal in suspicious retribution. In the second half of January, Transports find their personal timelines have become disrupted on the return to Exsilium; some revert back to youth, some age past their present state, and some are unchanged. The Initiative is unable to help until the Transporter is ready to send them through time again, to find necessary supplies for fixing the Transporter signal. All Transports are sent on a mission to Uruguay in 2753, home of the first and last self-aware AI. Historically, a fledgling United Earth bombed the AI out of existence as soon as it began taking measures against them, but the Transports are sent in to download a copy of the program before it’s lost forever. The Initiative intends to recruit this AI and have it fix their Transporter machine, as well as strengthen defenses against United Earth interference. The newly rescued AI (contactable on the network as ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small} aithinkthereforeaiam) needs a missing power supply to fully fix the Transporter, and Transports are sent to Baltimore, Maryland, USA in 1994 to raid the art school MICA for art projects, as historical record claims some art student produced exactly the right mix of chemicals in this year, but the project was afterwards lost. The mission is successful, but as the Transporter signal is still corrupted, some Transports arrive in the wrong body. This body swap lasts for two weeks before the AI fixes the Transporter and restores balance.Transports are sent to Wollongong, the capital of Australia in 2464, where the entire city has become reclusive and automated all processes to the point of never needing to leave their homes. Transports are asked to encourage citizens to reintegrate and reform a social society, in the interests of speeding up Australia’s role in global reform a little earlier than historical record shows happening. In late April, a group of Transports exploring United Earth territory steal an inner-orbital spaceship from a United Earth scientific outpost and fly it back to Exsilium. They negotiate with the Initiative and ask for more transparency in return for handing over the ship. Shortly afterward, a self-detonating bomb sends the ship crashing down into the Housing building, demolishing the top four floors and relocating everyone into temporary housing for a while. Housing is restored, but the top floors are still under construction. Also, in an effort to be more transparent as promised, the Initiative informs Transports they’ve been working on a tentative technology to return unwilling and unable fighters to their home worlds. Stressing that it’s a very experimental process and may go wrong, they ask for a volunteer willing to take the risk of never seeing Exsilium or home again. Elmer C. Albatross (of Baccano!) is chosen, and a small team of volunteers joins him in returning to his world. The mission appears to be a success. In late May, the Initiative checks in on Elmer’s world again to discover the United Earth has launched a surprise attack in devastatingly short time. The entire world is at the losing end of a war, with major cities being destroyed, people being slaughtered wholesale, and all natural resources being stripped. They sound the alarm and ask all combat-ready Transports to rally in defense of the world, but it’s too late; the Masked prove too strong and numerous and their attack too far advanced. Elmer’s world is lost to the United Earth, and any attempts to pull people from a point beyond his current canon point (the loss of his world) fail. Characters from Baccano! and any related series from the creator are unable to be apped from any point past 2002 until the damage is undone via missions through time to stop it. As a last note: it is shortly afterward discovered that Adam Jensen (of Deus ex Machina) had been hacked by the United Earth and been reporting information, including all information he gathered from the first venue into Elmer’s world. His reports back enabled the United Earth to build a back door into the Initiative’s signal, and any trip they take into another world will light the way there for the United Earth as well. Adam is currently dead and unable to be revived by the Initiative’s technology due to United Earth interference United Earth sleeper agents release a viral infection into the populace. It’s subtle at first, but by mid-June the death toll is high and the hospitals are at critical capacity. Transports are sent to interrogate all traceable sources of the sickness, and with the information gained from them, the Initiative is able to pinpoint the time and place for a crucial mission. Transports are sent to Alaska to alter the strand from a viral infection to a bacterial one, to be combated in the present with an antibiotic. The United Earth contacts the Network to inform all residents that Exsilium is quarantined, and any person seen stepping outside its border will be immediately executed. Three days later bombs begin to drop, focused on the Hold and on the hospitals. All citizens seek shelter underground. In the aftermath, the population gets tired of willingly looking the other way from the Initiative and suffering so much in return, and unrest grows against the Initiative and obvious Transports. Various player plots run, while the Initiative sends Transports in small groups for supplies to rehabilitate the moonbase, which is still in the early stages of being brought back into use. Transports are brought en masse to a sunny beach in the late Cretaceous Era and told to relax for a week. Transport Catsovi (original) contacts the United Earth with the intention of selling out powered Transports, which the United Earth is interested in studying after being alerted to their possibilities by study of a captured Kaworu Nagisa (of Neon Genesis Evangelion). Transports are slowly mind-controlled during the first half of August to kidnap other characters and show themselves out of Exsilium and into United Earth hands, where a Border Patrol escorts them to a research facility/Holding Compound. There their powers are nullified as researchers study them and learn how to recreate their powers. The subtle disappearing act ends in a violent bang a Transport-wide party, where the last of those mind controlled grab their victims and rush off, while a monster controlled by Catsovi descends to block powers, and the United Earth send in their Masked to add to the mayhem and destruction. The kidnapped characters are traced to the Compound, and the Initiative mounts a series of quick missions in time to weaken the structure in preparation for the rescue attempt. Meanwhile, kidnapped characters are able to explore the Compound and learn more about the United Earth. The rescue mission is launched on the 19th and successfully brings back all missing characters, while revealing that powered supersoldiers (currently only children) have been made of their stolen DNA. It is then discovered that attack on United Earth territory is considered the final straw for Exsilium’s transgressions against the United Earth, and that they will be launching a nuclear strike against the island on October 1st. The Initiative pours all time and resources into readying the moonbase for habitation, intending this to be their escape. As predicted, Exsilium is nuked on the 1st, and the surrounding land is rendered fully uninhabitable. The move to the moonbase is complete, including the Transporter, but the resurrection technology was not able to make the trip. The characters are confined to a barely-functional moonbase with only 14 Initative employees, working to supply the base via missions in time, and renovate and open what there hadn’t been time to revitalize so far. The return to Exsilium and undoing of the nuclear strike is left entirely in Transport hands. On the last day of October, the Agriculture wing is finally unlocked, and the fate of the previous occupants of the moonbase is discovered: they had been attacked by an alien virus and made into zombie-like creatures. These creatures are released into the rest of the base, to be fought off and destroyed. Chloe Frazer and Charlie Cutter (of Uncharted) plan and execute a mutiny on the moonbase. With several other Transports, they seize control of the Transport pad, take a few Initiative hostages, and sabotage moonbase systems. Unsatisfied with the (lack of) progress the Initiative has made in restoring Exsilium, and in regard to the war in general, they demand greater Transport control and authority. A second group of Transports fights their way into the Transporter room to break the siege and imprison the mutineers. The Transport population is left divided and undecided in regards to who was in the right, or what the mutineers’ fates should be. Shortly after, the AI announces that nuclear radiation readings have unexpectedly decreased dramatically in Exsilium. A scouting party is sent down to Exsilium after satellite readings suggest the island is suddenly covered in snow. They discover that the entire face of the planet has changed due to unexpected side effects of their missions, and seems to have entered another Ice Age, complete with genetically engineered animals adapted to the cold, and yetis. The new face of the Initiative, referred to by Transports as the New Initiative, is secretive, distrusting, less advanced, and without anything resembling the Transporter technology, which remains in Transport hands. The bulk of the Transports return to Exsilium, although the moonbase is left operational. The AI suggests a series of missions meant to alter and control the development of cloning and genetics-altering technology, which is the first step to regaining old Exsilium. |