Yup, it would Dream. I think the virus should be a background thing. We're 'sent' to the future to find out about it, but it's not something that is threatening us at the moment, but could become a problem if left alone. Sorta like how we think of Global Warming. It's not 'threatening' us ATM (pfft yeah right, anyone who thinks that is a moron XD ), but could become a big problem if left along (which is what we're doing about Global Warming...leaving it alone).

yay, non-evil-unleashing order!

though I'll admit I've been looking forward to Sonya figuring out that she's ended up joining the bad guys. (It's somewhat moot at the moment, since the Order has been subsumed by the Resistance)

oh, another thing that occurs to me about people remembering things about the future...

Suppose we kick the future plot off on June 1 and it takes us six real-world months to run. It seems we have two options:

1) PCs in the future don't also RP in present-time.
In this case we're splitting the site, with some PCs in the future and others (including new arrivals) in the present, which seems like something we ought to avoid doing again.

2) PCs in the future also RP in present-time.
In this case we have characters who, IC, "remember" things that haven't yet been RPed out and which they therefore don't know about OOC. This seems problematic.

Perhaps one way around it is to say that at first, we don't remember anything about the future, and that memories slowly trickle in over time. So as things get revealed in the future-RP threads, the characters can "suddenly remember" those things in the present-RP threads (despite having come back from the future months earlier).

Does that make any sense?

I think that we could play both the future and the present at the same time. As long as we are still in a limited number of threads (say 3 total, for the two normal threads and one plot related) we shouldn't get too overwhelmed. That way characters who don't want to participate in the future thread (or are bored with it) will still have something to do.

As for remembering (in the future threads what happened in the past): Anything that happens between the present time and the future time belongs only to the realm of possibible futures, it doesn't really have to happen in the real time line. Therefore any memories a character has in the future are only possible memories- it may or may not end up happening that way. Any memories that involve other people will have to be worked out over PM with the other characters that are involved. Each character can decide how in depth to go into their own memories too. They don't have to be really complicated.

As for remembering (in the past what happened in the future threads): It would probably work the best if we set the jump forward to the future in a generic time. Then, no one remembers anything about the future in the present time until the future plot is completed. When we "jump back" to the present time, that will be when people can start remembering the things that happened in the dream/ future. It will be as if they woke up one morning and had just dreamed of the entire future plot, and will remember it from that point forward. (Or they remember the whole thing right away, but it gradually starts to fade from memory, just like a dream would. So you'd have to write things down if you wanted to remember them!)

Example of how the jumping around might work:

June:
*jump forward set in generic time, where ever characters are won't affect the jump forward

In between:
*RP both the future and the present at the same time, one thread for each plus one extra to be used in either future or present.
*Nothing in the future thread affects the present threads until after the future thread jumps back
*The present threads are remembered in the future threads

Dec:
*jump back to present time
*characters wake up from sleeping, and remember the future as if it all had happened in a very vivid dream

It will be as if the jump forward and back happened all in one night during December of the present time line.

Kat, you just made my head spin. Let me spit your explanation back to you to make sure I understand.

* at some point we kick off the plot

* after that point we start posting on future threads
On those threads we (IC) remember whatever has already happened, as well as things that haven't yet happened.

* after that point we ALSO continue posting on current threads, just as we do now.
On those threads we are (IC) completely unaware of what's going on in the future threads.

* as things happen on the current threads, we start remembering them in the future threads as well.

* if inconsistencies develop that are too large to simply ignore, we handwave them away as "possible but not necessary futures"

* at some point we terminate the plot

* after that point, we stop posting on future threads

* after that point, we can remember what happened in the future.

Yes?

So, really, there is no "jump" forward. What's happening is that at some point (when we terminate the plot), everyone shares a prophetic vision of a future, perhaps a possible one. (Perhaps not, though, since things that happened in the current threads might make the real present inconsistent with the future we saw.)

OK, I think I understand that. And yes, that solves the problem I was concerned about.

Cool.

If the plot is like a giant dream (in the sense that it may or may not happen) Astral plane makes sense.

If it isn't....

Then I'm still totally confused. Not that that's unusual.

In the current time line (non-FP), we know/remember nothing about the Future until that plot is over. When it's over, we wake up one morning and we remember. As if it happened in a dream. In the 'possible future', we'd remember what's going on non-FP but the memories would be 'old' at that point.

I like Kat's breakdown. Setting it in the Astral plane board sounds good for keeping the threads organized.

And just to re-iterate something Kat said: we should definitely work out through PMs, after this is done, how much other characters remember about our characters. Some of us might be doin' things in the future that we don't want to be remembered.

I'm just thinking power-improvement-wise. Some of us want to keep our advances on the downlow.

The Astral Plain board might get a little crowded, but it would work. Or we can stick the posts in the regular locations and distinguish them from regular time threads by putting (FP) in front of the title. FP=Future Plot.

Sonya, yes you got the idea.

Kaz, your powers of summing up are amazing. How did you manage to say in one sentence what it took me like three paragraphs to explain?

so I just discovered this actual thread, would someone mind posting a summary of the idea so far? thanks, lol

I'll do it this evening.

I forgot about this thread a while ago, and having just read the last page I think that someone should ask Lady J to create some FP boards, which might or might not be in the astral plane. Perhaps the future plot boards could have there're own catagory, like the mansion and the sanctuary, and just have 'Mansion', 'Sanctuary' etc as boards within it.

And I like what Calley said about OOC choosing what is remembered by everyone else. I especially don't want people IC to remember the cool power boost I'm giving Shogun *evil laugh*

There's been lots of discussion of this, though no actual decisions.

I'm trying to summarize all the ideas from this thread here.
Many of them are mutually exclusive.
Some of them we seem to no longer be seriously considering, but I listed them here anyway.

Hope this is helpful.

What is the future like?

• The Virus - a major plague that has something or other to do with mutants
  • The Virus is fatal to humans, but mutants are immune.
    
  • The Virus used to be fatal to just humans, but now it's mutating to affect mutants too.
    
  • The Virus itself is not currently a huge deal... its major effects have already happened
    
  • The Virus works like the Haywire virus, except with additional effects
    
  • The Virus was an accidental result of something or other, neither natural nor intentional
    
  • The Virus was intentionally developed and released by Syn, for some reason
    
  • The Virus was developed by Hunter's lab for some reason, but released accidentally.
    
  • The cure to the Virus depends on something from the Human Nation
    
  
  
• Where are the mutants and the humans?
  • Mutant Nation - some powerful mutants took over an island somewhere and forcibly expatriated, killed and/or enslaved the human population to create a True Mutant Society (tm) there.
    
  • Mutant North America - Virus caused all the baseline humans to either die or flee North America, leaving it to the mutants. Humans everywhere else try to quarantine N.Am.
    
  • Human Nation - the surviving humans have gathered on a large island somewhere, the rest of the world is controlled by mutants
    
  • No major change - major population centers have both humans and mutants, as today.
    
  
  
• Who gets along with who?
  • Mutants are all united with one another
    
  • Mutually opposed mutant factions, as today
    
  • Mutants and humans are actively fighting each other
    
  • Mutants and humans have an uneasy peace
    
  • Mutants are in charge of everything
    
  • Hunter is a major world power, though not yet in charge of everything
    
  
  

What causes the future-thingie?
Theory 1: Some prescient mutant ("Plato") causes a vision of the future to warn us about the future so we can take action to prevent it now. Plato uses Deja's power somehow to make the vision happen.
Theory 2: Some evil mutant creates an illusion of the future to distract us while he does something else.

Do our future selves know anything is weird?
Theory 1: Kinda. Initially we don't, but as we approach some nexus point, we start to realize we're "from the past" in some way. Possibly it's not even a real future, just an illusion, in which case we start to realize it's not real.
Theory 2: Not at all. Our future selves are just themselves, all that's happening is our present selves are getting a vision of the future.
Theory 3: Absolutely. We wake up in our future bodies not remembering how we got there or any of the last N years.

How do we RP the future events?
We create new "future" threads, and start RPing our future selves on those threads. Also, we create new profiles for our characters, describing their state in the future.
Meanwhile, we continue to RP our present selves on the normal threads, independent of the future.
Ideally, we create a separate set of boards for the future (Future New York, Future Mutant Island, whatever) and post on those.

How far into the future do we see?
Theory 1: 5 years
Theory 2: 7 years
Theory 3: 10 years
Theory 4: 15 years

Who does it affect?
Players decide whether they are involved or not. Those who aren't interested don't have to participate. We're still RPing in the current-time threads at the same time.

How long do we "stay in the future"?
In other words, when do we decide to stop RPing future events?
Theory 1: One day
Theory 2: When we've "learned our lessons"

What do we remember after it's all done?
Theory 1: Everything.
Theory 2: Nothing much - everyone has fragmented memories, but remember whatever lesson it is they learned.
Theory 3: Each player decides what his/her character remembers.
Theory 4: Each player decides what his/her character remembers about the world in general, but no more about other PCs than the other player allows. Coordinate via PM.

Lol, Sonya, I was working on a summary at the same time as you! I've combined a few things, and noted what people seemed to be in agreement about. Sorry everyone if a few things get repeated. I tried to take out the redundant things.

How long do we "stay in the future"?/ What triggers us coming back to the regular time line?
*Learning what we were supposed to learn. We find out what events trigger this possible future, then we come back with the power to change it.
*We figure out that it isn't real.
*Time runs out, we have either learned our lesson or we haven't.
*I think most people wanted it to be longer than one day.

Memories: Do our future selves know anything is weird?/ What do we remember after it's all done?
*General consensus was that nothing in the future plot will affect the regular time line until the future plot is over. Once we come back people will remember pieces of it. A good guideline is probably something like: we all remember events that happened, we remember our own power growths, we do not remember anyone else's power growths, people we meet in the future before we meet them in the present will seem strangely familiar (we recognize faces and such, but don't know everything about them- like what their powers are.)

How far into the future do we see?
I think most people were thinking about 10 years.

Organizing posts for the future plot:
*Threads labeled (FP) - This could get confusing, especially for newbs.
*A separate board for the future - This requires the help of Lady J, but would probably work the best.
*Everything taking place in the astral plane - This would make that board very crowded.

Side plot vs. Main plot
*Most people seemed to want this as a main plot.
*One idea that combined the two ideas was to have both the normal and the future time lines happening at the same time. Each person could write in three threads at once (two normal and one future OR one normal and two future). This keeps with the general two thread plus one plot related one that we have been using. This would allow us to develop the future story at the same time that we continue to develop our characters in the present time. This will help out with newbs, too. They can start out just in the regular time line, then join the future after they get the hang of things.

Future Profiles
*There was a general agreement that people should create a future profile, just like an updated version of the old one showing changes in a different color. These might take some time to approve, but I think it is necessary to make sure that people don't get too overpowered. Calley and I would both be okay with helping out which ever mod gets the task of going through all the future profiles and approving them.

thanks for posting ladies!!